Low Power Cheap GPU

[A Silver]

My dad want me to upgrade his old computer.  It has some sort of nvidia gpu (no name on it) and he wants a new faster one. It needs to be cheap and no other power needed only the power taken from the motherboard. I was looking at a Geforce 8800 GTS but I don't know if it needs any power directly from the PSU. If anyone has any suggestions I would like to know.

[Mr.Meerkat]

Budget? Do you want to play games on it? non PCIe powered 950s? 750/750tis? 

[A Silver]

1 minute ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Budget? Do you want to play games on it? non PCIe powered 950s? 750/750tis? 

No planning to play games but he want it to be fast. And since we are not upgrading the CPU I want a better GPU.

[Lordmac14]

Not something like a GT 730 (unless you iGPU is very  bad or you have a very low budget.

[Mr.Meerkat]

1 minute ago, A Silver said:

No planning to play games but he want it to be fast. And since we are not upgrading the CPU I want a better GPU.

CPU? if he's not going to play games then really any low end non-power GPU will do so yeah  

[Mira Yurizaki]

GTX 750 Ti or GTX 950 that doesn't require a power plug (if those exist) is pretty much your best bet.

 

AMD unfortunately doesn't have anything as good in the low power consumption area. I believe their fastest is the R7 250.

[A Silver]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

GTX 750 Ti or GTX 950 that doesn't require a power plug (if those exist) is pretty much your best bet.

 

AMD unfortunately doesn't have anything as good in the low power consumption area. I believe their fastest is the R7 250.

As my budget is very low would a 8800 GTS be good just to make the pc faster?

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, A Silver said:

As my budget is very low would a 8800 GTS be good just to make the pc faster?

8800 GTS isn't low power though, it requires PEG power.

[don_svetlio]

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

GTX 750 Ti or GTX 950 that doesn't require a power plug (if those exist) is pretty much your best bet.

 

AMD unfortunately doesn't have anything as good in the low power consumption area. I believe their fastest is the R7 250.

You can find 260s without PCIe power IIRC.

anyhow, if not gaming anything besides an iGPU is useless

 

1 minute ago, A Silver said:

As my budget is very low would a 8800 GTS be good just to make the pc faster?

The GPU will NOT make the PC faster when the CPU, drive and potentially RAM are the issue

[A Silver]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

8800 GTS isn't low power though, it requires PEG power.

Oh... that is around my burget so are there any around that price what need no PCIe Power?

[DXMember]

2 minutes ago, A Silver said:

As my budget is very low would a 8800 GTS be good just to make the pc faster?

it won't make it faster

get an SSD instead

[A Silver]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

You can find 260s without PCIe power IIRC.

anyhow, if not gaming anything besides an iGPU is useless

 

The GPU will NOT make the PC faster when the CPU, drive and potentially RAM are the issue

I am also upgrading ram from 1GB to 8GB.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, A Silver said:

I am also upgrading ram from 1GB to 8GB.

If he has 1GB of RAM then even if you add a Titan X it will still be extremely slow. What CPU does he have?

[A Silver]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

If he has 1GB of RAM then even if you add a Titan X it will still be extremely slow. What CPU does he have?

intel core 2 duo

[don_svetlio]

Just now, A Silver said:

intel core 2 duo

He needs a new CPU + SSD + RAM. Upgrading the GPU won't do jack shit

[A Silver]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

He needs a new CPU + SSD + RAM. Upgrading the GPU won't do jack shit

But Still is there a cheap GPU around the price of a 8800 GTS with no PCIe Power? I know it wont do much but I would still like one.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, A Silver said:

But Still is there a cheap GPU around the price of a 8800 GTS with no PCIe Power? I know it wont do much but I would still like one.

You will literally be throwing money away. GPUs do NOT contribute to anything except games and HW acceleration

[agent_x007]

OP : Since U have limited budget (few bucks not few hundred), just buy another 1GB of RAM and 8600 GT.

[A Silver]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

You will literally be throwing money away. GPUs do NOT contribute to anything except games and HW acceleration

okay well thanks for the help. So I should just upgrade ram and CPU if possible.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, A Silver said:

okay well thanks for the help. So I should just upgrade ram and CPU if possible.

What he needs is a board + CPU + SSD + RAM upgrade. Go for a 2nd hand Nahalem/Sandy combo with 4GB DDR3 and possible a cheap 120GB SSD

[agent_x007]

3 minutes ago, A Silver said:

okay well thanks for the help. So I should just upgrade ram and CPU if possible.

Go for CPU if U have DX10 class GPU, go for GPU if U have DX9c class or older one.
RAM is a top pick for U tho (2GB RAM in total is required to do any multitasking these days).

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, agent_x007 said:

Go for CPU if U have DX10 class GPU, go for GPU if U have DX9c class or older one.
RAM is a top pick for U tho (2GB RAM in total is required to do any multitasking these days).

Why should he care about DX9/10/11 when he isn't playing games? Any iGPU from intel is enough for his needs

[agent_x007]

DX9c = limited/no HW acceleration (not enough today)
DX10 = Hardware acceleration
DX11 = Hardware acceleration + good perf/power ratio
^It's a really simple (not ideal) explanation of what U need to get HW acceleration in YT/browsing.

Core 2 Duo CPU = LGA 775
775 integrated GPU's are BAD, since in most cases they can't HW accelerate anything modern browsers use.
Also, iGPU reserves some of RAM capacity for itself and with 1GB/2GB U need all the RAM U can get for normal tasks.

Also, I really don't see how U can sqeeze a modern Sandy/Haswell platform (CPU + MB + RAM) in "used 8800 GTS" budget.

[Mr.Meerkat]

23 minutes ago, agent_x007 said:

Also, I really don't see how U can sqeeze a modern Sandy/Haswell platform (CPU + MB + RAM) in "used 8800 GTS" budget.

He never said Haswell...He said Nahalem which is first gen core i3/5/7 and sandy which is second gen core i3/5/7  but you're correct, it would be impossible to get 4GBs of ram a core i3 CPU and motherboard for the price of a used 8800 GTS