R7 350?

[aisle9]

I'm hunting for something the rough equivalent of a GTX 750 Ti for my Optiplex reclamation project, because I'd kind of like to get the 750 Ti I have in there out at some point. I don't particularly want to go higher-end than the 750 Ti unless there's a screaming deal out there, because I'm not sure that the overclocked Q6600 can handle much more of a GPU than that. Even a 460, I think, would be pushing it. It has to have only a single slot worth of output because of the upside-down layout of the "Someone on the design team got drunk and thought this was a good idea" BTX motherboard, but there's room for a bulging cooler. What I wouldn't want to do is end up with something lower-end than my backup HD 6670, which handles Skyrim and Overwatch unexpectedly well, but is in no way a fit for the 1080p gamer I want this PC to be.

 

This card on Newegg kind of came out of nowhere at me, and I admit to never having heard of an R7 350 before...which kind of makes me think that it's a "Best Buy special" OEM card that's just put out there to get rid of unused GPU stock. To the surprise of no one, I found a couple of places that peg it as a rebadged HD 7770, in which case it'd be marginally worse than the 750 Ti...but not by much. Is it, in fact, just a 7770, and if so, am I wrong for thinking that $50 for a new one is actually a pretty reasonable price?

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

"Someone on the design team got drunk and thought this was a good idea" BTX motherboard

Is was a good idea when you had p4's and 6600 le's The gpu's made very little heat, and the cpus were hot enough to melt russia in the winter. The design was made to have the cpu get cooled better than atx, while sacrifing case temps.

 

 

That card looks fine for the price. Its basically a 7750

[Energycore]

Looking at the performance on a 7770 roughly, seems like $50 is not bad.

 

But I wouldn't call it a 1080p card, or anything below a 750 Ti.

 

Aren't there any single slot 750 Tis out there?

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/3hPzK8/msi-video-card-n750ti2gd5tlp

[aisle9]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Is was a good idea when you had p4's and 6600 le's The gpu's made very little heat, and the cpus were hot enough to melt russia in the winter. The design was made to have the cpu get cooled better than atx, while sacrifing case temps.

 

 

That card looks fine for the price. Its basically a 7750

Lighting your computer on fire as a means of cooling it was a good idea in the Netburst days.

 

I can't remember how the wacky Radeon system ended up working out; is a 7750 better or worse than a 7770? 7770's an easy frame of reference for me, because I had one for a while and was amazed to find it performing about as well as my 750 Ti in most games, maybe having to dial the settings back in others, but not by much.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

Lighting your computer on fire as a means of cooling it was a good idea in the Netburst days.

 

I can't remember how the wacky Radeon system ended up working out; is a 7750 better or worse than a 7770? 7770's an easy frame of reference for me, because I had one for a while and was amazed to find it performing about as well as my 750 Ti in most games, maybe having to dial the settings back in others, but not by much.

Its a bit worse than a 7770, probably about 10-30% slower.b

[aisle9]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

Looking at the performance on a 7770 roughly, seems like $50 is not bad.

 

But I wouldn't call it a 1080p card, or anything below a 750 Ti.

 

Aren't there any single slot 750 Tis out there?

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/3hPzK8/msi-video-card-n750ti2gd5tlp

That's the exact 750 Ti I have in there lol. Part of the reason I want to get it out is because some of the noises it's making suggest that it doesn't like being upside down.

 

It is an awesome little GPU, though. Won't overclock by an inch without artifacting, but it fits where bigger CPUs dare not go.

[Energycore]

4 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

That's the exact 750 Ti I have in there lol. Part of the reason I want to get it out is because some of the noises it's making suggest that it doesn't like being upside down.

 

It is an awesome little GPU, though. Won't overclock by an inch without artifacting, but it fits where bigger CPUs dare not go.

I would personally strip those puny little fans out of there, and put a real 92mm fan against the tiny 750 Ti heatsink, but I suspect that's a 2 slot solution.

[aisle9]

9 minutes ago, Energycore said:

I would personally strip those puny little fans out of there, and put a real 92mm fan against the tiny 750 Ti heatsink, but I suspect that's a 2 slot solution.

Technically, it's not even a true single-slot as is, because the cooler extends downward (upward, in my case) into a second slot. If you were to strap a 92mm fan onto it, it would definitely lose its low profile claim. The two little noisemakers in there don't do a terrible job of cooling, but as you'd expect for tiny fans on a tiny heatsink for a reasonably potent chip, it gets toasty in there.

 

I actually had the Gigabyte version of the low-profile 750 Ti first. It lasted all of five days before that teeny tiny little single fan proved that it was inadequate in every way, and the GPU was pushing north of 85C at stock speeds during Heaven testing with its fan wailing like the end of days had come.

[Energycore]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

Technically, it's not even a true single-slot as is, because the cooler extends downward (upward, in my case) into a second slot. If you were to strap a 92mm fan onto it, it would definitely lose its low profile claim. The two little noisemakers in there don't do a terrible job of cooling, but as you'd expect for tiny fans on a tiny heatsink for a reasonably potent chip, it gets toasty in there.

 

I actually had the Gigabyte version of the low-profile 750 Ti first. It lasted all of five days before that teeny tiny little single fan proved that it was inadequate in every way, and the GPU was pushing north of 85C at stock speeds during Heaven testing with its fan wailing like the end of days had come.

Then there is only one solution to your troubles: undervolt like a madman.

[aisle9]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

Then there is only one solution to your troubles: undervolt like a madman.

...or take it out of the tiny, cramped case with poor airflow that it started in, replace the whole board and setup in there with an APU and move it into a big, happy, spacious Optiplex 760 mini tower with outstanding airflow

 

Ultra-tight cases with no built-in fans are not designed for midrange gaming cards. There's a reason that build stepped down to an OEM 730 (rebadged 430 stock) before ending up with a 5350 as a YouTube/Netflix build.