PC Sherdog PC Build/Buy Thread, v6: My Power Supply Burned Down My House

[Madmick]

Hello gamers!

My sisters oldest are going to have my old office PC. It has a 300 W PSU and a i5 processor along with 4 GB of ram and an SSD for the OS. What it is missing is a GPU that can run games that is on my external HDD he will have from me. Games such as Battlefield 2, BattleZone Redux, F.E.A.R, FarCry 1-2 etc. FPS games pre 2010.

My question is. What GPU is the best to buy without the extra power supply. Basically powered directly from the motherboard without the 6 pin. I dont want to buy a new PSU.

I am looking on auction sites for second hand GPU´s right now.

Thanks in advance

NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti is easily the most powerful card that can run off motherboard power & that PSU (staying under 75W power draw, as a matter of reality and not just specification, is the critical decider, and even overclocked the 1050 Ti stays under its quoted TDP). It only runs ~$160 these days:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-ti,4787-6.html
It will be overkill for games from 2010 and earlier, so you could get the GTX 1050 for ~$60 cheaper. Theoretically, these are your options, but I would strongly advise the GTX 1050 Ti or GTX 1050. The RX cards, when tested, have often ran over the 75W limit. That could blow up the PSU:

• NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti
• NVIDIA GTX 1050
• AMD RX 560 (1024)
• AMD RX 560 (896)
• AMD RX 460
  
• AMD RX 550

Often those office comps are cramped, so I would suggest one of the following models in order that you don't run into an unexpected headache.

EVGA SC Gaming ACX 2.0 GTX 1050 Ti 4GB.
By far the bestseller of all designs. It's clocked to 1.35 GHz, so it has one of the better boosts out-of-the-box. No need to play with it.
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Cm...gb-sc-gaming-acx-20-video-card-04g-p4-6253-kr

ALTERNATIVES

Zotac Mini GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
It's within $5 of the cheapest version of the card, and is probably the #2 bestseller design. It's also a mini form factor. You sacrifice a bit of clock speed to shave off some dollars:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/NndFf7/zotac-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-4gb-mini-video-card-zt-p10510a-10l

Zotac Low-Profile GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
They also offer a dual-fan low-profile design of the 1050 Ti reference for about $10 more if you've measured inside the case, and height is the main concern:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/vV...-ti-4gb-low-profile-video-card-zt-p10510e-10l

 

[sweede]

NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti is easily the most powerful card that can run off motherboard power & that PSU (staying under 75W power draw, as a matter of reality and not just specification, is the critical decider, and even overclocked the 1050 Ti stays under its quoted TDP). It only runs ~$160 these days:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-ti,4787-6.html
It will be overkill for games from 2010 and earlier, so you could get the GTX 1050 for ~$60 cheaper. These are your options, but I would strongly advise the GTX 1050 Ti or GTX 1050:

• NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti
• NVIDIA GTX 1050
• AMD RX 560 (1024)
• AMD RX 560 (896)
• AMD RX 460
  
• AMD RX 550

Often those office comps are cramped, so I would suggest one of the following models in order that you don't run into an unexpected headache.

EVGA SC Gaming ACX 2.0 GTX 1050 Ti 4GB.
By far the bestseller of all designs. It's clocked to 1.35 GHz, so it has one of the better boosts out-of-the-box. No need to play with it.
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Cm...gb-sc-gaming-acx-20-video-card-04g-p4-6253-kr

ALTERNATIVES

Zotac Mini GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
It's within $5 of the cheapest version of the card, and is probably the #2 bestseller design. It's also a mini form factor. You sacrifice a bit of clock speed to shave off some dollars:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/NndFf7/zotac-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-4gb-mini-video-card-zt-p10510a-10l

Zotac Low-Profile GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
They also offer a dual-fan low-profile design of the 1050 Ti reference for about $10 more if you've measured inside the case, and height is the main concern:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/vV...-ti-4gb-low-profile-video-card-zt-p10510e-10l

Wow, great reply. Thanks alot!

The PC is a midtower so the space is not an issue. The 1050 series is a nice bunch of cards for cheap money. But if I buy one it would be for my own PC. LOL!

I found a 750 Ti for 40 dollars and it will be good enough to even play Homeworld Remasterd.

Thanks again for your time Madmick.

 

[Quipling]

Thinking about overclocking. What should I know?

 

[Madmick]

Wow, great reply. Thanks alot!

The PC is a midtower so the space is not an issue. The 1050 series is a nice bunch of cards for cheap money. But if I buy one it would be for my own PC. LOL!

I found a 750 Ti for 40 dollars and it will be good enough to even play Homeworld Remasterd.

Thanks again for your time Madmick.

Great score. I almost added the 750 Ti to my list, but I figured it had been out of production long enough that unless buying used you weren't going to see a good value on it. A friend of mine has a GTX 750 Ti. Great card. Starts to struggle with the AAA stuff from 2014.

 

[Joe_Armstrong]

Those windows 10 updates can take very long man.
That fall update took over an hour.

 

[560ti]

Wow, great reply. Thanks alot!

The PC is a midtower so the space is not an issue. The 1050 series is a nice bunch of cards for cheap money. But if I buy one it would be for my own PC. LOL!

I found a 750 Ti for 40 dollars and it will be good enough to even play Homeworld Remasterd.

Thanks again for your time Madmick.

Be careful with the 750 Ti, theres TONS of fake ones on ebay and amazon.

If you did buy it from one of those two sites then link the sellers page and sale listing

 

[jefferz]

Hello gamers!

My sisters oldest are going to have my old office PC. It has a 300 W PSU and a i5 processor along with 4 GB of ram and an SSD for the OS. What it is missing is a GPU that can run games that is on my external HDD he will have from me. Games such as Battlefield 2, BattleZone Redux, F.E.A.R, FarCry 1-2 etc. FPS games pre 2010.

My question is. What GPU is the best to buy without the extra power supply. Basically powered directly from the motherboard without the 6 pin. I dont want to buy a new PSU.

I am looking on auction sites for second hand GPU´s right now.

Thanks in advance

Are you using a prebuilt Compaq or something similar? Some of those don't even have enough power to use a 750ti. Make sure you google your model number to check compatibility before ordering your card.

Be careful with the 750 Ti, theres TONS of fake ones on ebay and amazon.

If you did buy it from one of those two sites then link the sellers page and sale listing

They're 550ti's with different coolers

 

[560ti]

They're 550ti's with different coolers

Yep. There's 3 different PC hardware forums that i consistently post on and the fake 750ti comes up every couple of weeks. The fake 750ti's are usually 550ti's or GTS450

 

[Madmick]

Be careful with the 750 Ti, theres TONS of fake ones on ebay and amazon.

If you did buy it from one of those two sites then link the sellers page and sale listing

Damn, I wasn't aware of this. I remember when the shoe market on eBay became flooded with fakes.

Is this a problem throughout the GPU scene on eBay, or is it specific to the lower end models that aren't physically huge, and can be easily faked with much cheaper hardware?

 

[sweede]

So, I got me my self a card for 400 swedish kronor. And I bought in the same city as I live in.

It´s quite scary to think about people cheating like the above comments. Are they not scared to get bad comments for future sales? We have a net-auctionsite here in Sweden and you can´t sell stuff if people give you bad reputation, if the product did not live up to the description when you put it on sale.

The card I bought is a Gigabyte GeForce GTX750Ti OC 2GB and around 1.5 years old.

But thank you for the info, and I will be more careful in the future. Luckily us swedes are quite honorable. LOL

 

[Madmick]

View attachment 311313 View attachment 311315 View attachment 311317 So, I got me my self a card for 400 swedish kronor. And I bought in the same city as I live in.

It´s quite scary to think about people cheating like the above comments. Are they not scared to get bad comments for future sales? We have a net-auctionsite here in Sweden and you can´t sell stuff if people give you bad reputation, if the product did not live up to the description when you put it on sale.

The card I bought is a Gigabyte GeForce GTX750Ti OC 2GB and around 1.5 years old.

But thank you for the info, and I will be more careful in the future. Luckily us swedes are quite honorable. LOL

The EU, in general, is much more aggressive about policing consumer protections, which is good, but on the flipside, this is undoubtedly one of the things that contributes to higher market prices on the same goods over there.

 

[560ti]

View attachment 311313 View attachment 311315 View attachment 311317 So, I got me my self a card for 400 swedish kronor. And I bought in the same city as I live in.

That makes sense. When you made the original post, you said you paid $40 which is the price most of the fake ones where selling for online.

 

[560ti]

Damn, I wasn't aware of this. I remember when the shoe market on eBay became flooded with fakes.

Is this a problem throughout the GPU scene on eBay, or is it specific to the lower end models that aren't physically huge, and can be easily faked with much cheaper hardware?

Usually lower end models on ebay (650 and 750 are really the only two that have had major issues with fakes). Only highend card i remember that would rarely come up fake was the gtx 680. They would take a 9600GT and rewrite the bios to make it show up as a gtx 680

 

[jefferz]

Yep. There's 3 different PC hardware forums that i consistently post on and the fake 750ti comes up every couple of weeks. The fake 750ti's are usually 550ti's or GTS450

Have you seen the AMD fakes?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon...ess-3D-Video-Graphics-Card-HDMI-/263372353633

 

[Joe_Armstrong]

Do you guys know something about the Acer Predator desktop series ?
They look good to me, and even have the upper group, with a
i7 7700K, and 1080 TI with a 256 gb SSD

 

[My Spot]

Do you guys know something about the Acer Predator desktop series ?
They look good to me, and even have the upper group, with a
i7 7700K, and 1080 TI with a 256 gb SSD

Build, don't buy.
If not, Acer makes quality products from my experience (monitors, laptops, chrome books).
What resolution do you (wanna) play at?

 

[My Spot]

Someone was asking advice for 1080p gaming. I told them an i5 8400 with a GTX 1060 GB but now I'm thinking the i3 8100 would be good enough and it's roughly $80 cheaper.

 

[560ti]

Someone was asking advice for 1080p gaming. I told them an i5 8400 with a GTX 1060 GB but now I'm thinking the i3 8100 would be good enough and it's roughly $80 cheaper.

I would pay the extra $80 and get the i5 8400. Clocked 10% higher and has 2 extra cores which easily gives it $80 value.

Reason being if he wanted to get a new GPU in a few years, the i3 8100 will most likely bottleneck it badly (wouldn't be surprised if mid tier cards next year match the performance of an 1080 Ti, give it another generation after that and your easily talking higher than 1080ti performance on mid tier cards).

I would get it now instead of waiting. Intel changes the socket every generation and that leads to the used market being INCREDIBLY inflated. Users who are selling used know they can up-charge the better processors for that socket because those that have lower-end of that socket have no other option without doing a complete upgrade.

Just to give you an example, my friend sold his 4770 for $260 a few months ago. Its 4 years old and a lot slower than a brand new i5 8400 which sells for only $200. He only paid a little over $300 for it when it first came out.

 

[jefferz]

Someone was asking advice for 1080p gaming. I told them an i5 8400 with a GTX 1060 GB but now I'm thinking the i3 8100 would be good enough and it's roughly $80 cheaper.

I ran a G4560 1050ti combo and hit 60fps average with medium settings on most titles. It wouldn't do that on CPU heavy games like Ashes though.
It all depends on what games he wants to play.

Build, don't buy.
If not, Acer makes quality products from my experience (monitors, laptops, chrome books).
What resolution do you (wanna) play at?

Acer laptops as a quality product ....

 

[Joe_Armstrong]

Build, don't buy.
If not, Acer makes quality products from my experience (monitors, laptops, chrome books).
What resolution do you (wanna) play at?

Full HD should do just fine, but it's cool if it can be higher.