[Decision Made] Paging all Oppo Computer Techs (Advice Requested)

"boredalways" (boredalway666)
04/12/2020 at 19:30 • Filed to: Advicelopnik, computerlopnik, Emulationlopnik, PC Retro gaming build

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FINAL DECISION: Was able to find a new EVGA Geforce GT 710 2GB for $42 (tax included) shipped. More than I wanted to spend? Yes, but new is better than used for the same price. Found it on TopHatter. Should be here by the 22nd. Fingers crossed.

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UPDATE :

First, a big thank you to all who responded. So after taking some early advice, here are more that are closer to what I’m willing to spend on starting with the craziest option mainly because the lastest drivers are from 2019.

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ETA: Telsa is ded!

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!Why? GTX 480 cheapest is ~$55 used for 1.5GB, Tesla is ~$30 used. But would the Tesla be a strain on the mobo since it has no display ports???

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This one may be the winner and tbh, I owe this to ETA Prime. He’s actually using a 1GB card with 3.0ghz Core 2 duo in the attached video. This one is ~$40 used, but a new 1GB unit is about $1 cheaper.

H/T to ETA Prime

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Why? A GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB is PCIe 3.0 and starts ~$60. This is ~$45 with 2020 drivers available, but they are professional grade.

I had some others with 2GB under the same price range, but it seems pointless to post more. The GT 710 makes the most sense, but I’m still intrigued by the Quadros. Or would the Tesla work just fine.

Any other suggestions are welcome, especially if you can make more good points for avoiding a Quadro.

Original :

I’ve slowly started building an Emulation PC with my old ass PC parts purchased mainly back in 2007! Along with the Gigabyte motherboard in the first photo, it has an AMD Athlon 64 x2 6400+ Black Edition cpu, 12GB of DDR2 800 mhz PCs-6400 ram (should be 16GB, but I can’t find one 4GB stick), and is running Win10 Pro 1909. Added is a MSI R5450 512mb gpu that I can’t remember when I purchased it (2012???). Together it was able to run Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube using the Dolphin emulator at its standard 30fps, but it felt like it was struggling. So for the most part, I seem to be on the right track for emulating almost anything from the 6th generation of consoles (GC, Xbox, PS2) and older.

I want to get a more capable GPU but it needs to be cheap. I guess the hard part is that since I have old shit, what would actually still work with it? I have 3 in mind, 2 Nvidia and 1 AMD:

AMD RADEON R5 340X 2GB DDR3

ASUS ENGTS450 DC OC/DI/1GD5

Nvidia Quadro 2000 1GB GDDR5 (this is actually a professional graphics solution workstation card for CAD & DDS, but it’s cheap and seems to be a GPU option with DirectX 12 support)

I have some more that I’m looking at, all with 1 GB ram and using either DDR3 or GDDR5. The best part, I can find them used/refurbed $35 USD or less.

So what would be best?

DISCUSSION (36)

RooseveltDad > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 00:17

The Quadro 2000 is a solid performer. We use them in our animation lab at school, where they use Autodesk Maya and Adobe apps day in and day out. It’s worth a look, and at that price, a bargain.

RooseveltDad > RooseveltDad
04/12/2020 at 00:26

The ASUS is a rebranded NVIDIA GTS 450 and, as it turns out is the same basic card, though the Quadro has higher quality memory - the GTS was aimed at gaming and the Quadro at professionals.

404 - User No Longer Available > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 00:27

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-2000.c900

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-r5-340x-oem.c2820

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/#GTS%20450

The Quadro 2000 is way slower the two others , and there are 2 versions of the GTS 450 out there, which are architecturally different. One is about 10% faster than the other.

boredalways > 404 - User No Longer Available
04/12/2020 at 01:55

I noticed that, b ut it does use less power. Would it not be sufficient for my needs? Although not apples to apples, I did see a few videos showing it capable of running GTA5 on newer computers with Intel i7 cpu.

boredalways > RooseveltDad
04/12/2020 at 02:01

So either the GTS or the Quadro would be fine for my needs? The Quadro does use less power at least. Or would a 2GB DDR3 gpu work just as well like an AMD RADEON R5 340X?

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 05:58

I learned the hard way that old MBs with PCIe 2.0 doesn’t like a lot of modern PCIe 3.0 video cards. I tried to upgrade a 2nd generation i7 with a fairly decent video card (I forgot the various models I bought, but they were in the $200-300 range back in 2015) and had to return them all.

I finally found a returned GTX670 that worked with my older hardware and was quite pleased with it. I’m still using it on my i5 Hackintosh, and have another one in that i7 that I grabbed on eBay for $40.

Grindintosecond > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 09:01

I threw a 1050ti in my spare x4 965 box and it’s been a champ. Consider a used one of those? Unsure how cheap they are used now, but they play real nice with modern windows and have modern outputs.

Nom De Plume > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 09:23

Though nearly identical in construction, the Quadro line cards are still working years later while the consumer version was made to incredibly low standards and tolerances in comparison. Internally the Quadro uses ECC memory and everything is impeccably soldered etc. Firmware is where the real separation happens though.

The bad news, Quadro was likely as not run hard for years without a break as time means money in the industrial sector. Aim for one out of an executive’s workstation that saw light use or similar.

boredalways > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
04/12/2020 at 11:12

Damn, I completely forgot about the PCIe version. Thank you for the reminder.

boredalways > Grindintosecond
04/12/2020 at 11:18

Oof, the 1050ti is out of my price range. The cheapest on eBay is $74.

boredalways > Nom De Plume
04/12/2020 at 11:22

I will keep that in mind

Grindintosecond > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 12:20

Ok. I wasn’t sure. Be careful about older cards and windows 10. Some driver’s f or 10 have left out older cards, but if you have 8.1 driver’s they may work and then upgrade to 10....that’s too complicated. The post ati 5800 cards are supported, and I think gtx 560 are as well but anything later the better for the money is best I'd say here and check if they're on the driver's list on the mfgr site

404 - User No Longer Available > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 12:41

Raw power being sufficient is one thing but driver support is another, like Grindintosecond mentioned.

tpw_rules > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 17:59

NVidia Tesla cards are intended for things like servers that want to use the CUDA capabil ity to do machine learning or scientific computing or whatever. They don’t have monitor connections and can’t generate graphics, so they would be useless in a gaming machine.

The M2050 is also pretty useless for number crunching because it’s slow and only Compute Capability 2.0. They’re up to 7.5 now, and 2.0 cards aren’t supported by the latest versions of software people care about.

facw > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 18:02

ttyymmnn just bought a 1060 to replace a 710, maybe you should beg...

But man those cards are slow (says the person who just replaced an ancient Radeon 4670 from his HTPC)

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 18:07

Want a 1030 GT for $4 0? I’ve got one lying around. 1.2Ghz and 2GB of DDR5.

Nom De Plume > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 18:07

It would take some homework (to make sure it works with your processor/board), but you could always just score a low end open box GPU at Microcenter or one of the online places.

Nibby > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 18:14

none of those GPUs are worth a damn tbh...

also you can find GTX750 Tis for $50ish on reddit hardwareswap

you should get at least 2GB and snag a GTX660 for under $60

boredalways > tpw_rules
04/12/2020 at 18:15

Thanks. Tesla is now ded!

boredalways > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
04/12/2020 at 18:23

unfortunately, it’s PCIe 3.0 and I need 2.0. Thanks anyway.

boredalways > Nom De Plume
04/12/2020 at 18:27

Unfortunately the few Microcenter options are for instore pickup only

Nom De Plume > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 18:37

Just trying to make alternative suggestions in case something struck you. Best of luck with your final choice bringing frame rates and performance up to acceptable levels.

boredalways > Nibby
04/12/2020 at 18:56

Can’t use either since they aren’t PCIe 2.0

boredalways > Nom De Plume
04/12/2020 at 18:58

much appreciated

Nibby > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 19:14

really? PCIe 3.0 cards don’t work at *all* on that?

boredalways > Nibby
04/12/2020 at 19:22

exactly

PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120 > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 19:24

A PCIe 3.0 card will work just fine in a PCIe 2.0 slot and likely there will be no hit on performance, PCIe 2.0 has plenty of bandwidth in x16 on older cards. Hell I put my 780 ti in an a full size x8 slot on a PCIe 3.0 motherboard and saw essentially no appreciable drop in performance, maybe 3-5%. And for those keeping score, PCIe 2.0 is half the performance as PCIe 3.0, so an x8 slot is a good example of using that same card in an x16 PCIe 2.0 slot, following me?

Sorry if all of this was painfully obvious.

boredalways > PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120
04/12/2020 at 19:33

no worries. pain is how you learn (the hard way). But, I’ve pulled the trigger on a GT 710 2GB new. notes at the top.

boredalways > PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120
04/12/2020 at 19:33

no worries. pain is how you learn (the hard way). But, I’ve pulled the trigger on a GT 710 2GB new. notes at the top.

Nibby > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 19:54

what a load of bullshit

get a 550 Ti

Nom De Plume > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 20:08

Was probably a good idea to spend a few dollars more and buy new with a warranty. Reflow soldering isn’t the funnest.

boredalways > Nibby
04/12/2020 at 20:21

if for some reason gt 710 doesn’t work out, I will seriously consider it.

boredalways > Nom De Plume
04/12/2020 at 20:22

very true

Nibby > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 21:10

also consider firepro V5900, should be under $30 and i know for a fact it runs dolphin fine... will be much better than a GT710

IJustWantMyZBack > boredalways
04/12/2020 at 22:43

What Xbox emulator are you running? I don't recall any being worth a darn.

boredalways > IJustWantMyZBack
04/12/2020 at 23:02

haven’t gotten that far yet