Budget gamer, G1610, best non-bottlenecked GPU?

[VirtualLarry]

I just threw together an H61/G1610 rig, and was toying with the idea of building it out as a gaming rig to sell to someone.

Current parts:
Biostar H61MH mATX board
Intel G1610 Celeron 2.6Ghz IB dual-core
OCZ 30GB Agility SSD
2GB DDR3-1333
Xion Solaris case w/450W PSU
DVD-RW

So, I'm thinking of throwing in a not-too-powerful GPU, and an 8GB kit of RAM.

What GPU should that be? Will it handle anything higher than a 7770? If so, should I change out the PSU too? (Probably, only has 4-pin CPU and four molex, one floppy, no SATA, no PCI-E.)

I also have some 9600GSO cards lying around. Are those still decent for gaming? (At lower than 1080P, obviously.)

 

[Jaydip]

I would get a 7790

 

[SPBHM]

7770 and add 4GB of ram

 

[DominionSeraph]

9600 GSO sounds good. It doesn't sound like you were going to sell the cards individually, so if you were ever going to use them, what better time than now?

 

[Termie]

That chip is equivalent to an E8400: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/piledriver-k10-cpu-overclocking,3584-19.html

I wouldn't go with anything higher than an HD7750. My OC'd e8400 bottleneck a GTX460 pretty significantly. An HD7750 is quite a bit less powerful, so it's probably a good match.

By the way, don't bother with 8GB of RAM in that system - you'll be better off equipping it with 4GB, as 8GB won't do anything for it. You wouldn't recoup your costs on 8GB anyway with a low-priced system like this.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Termie is right about not going above a 7750/gtx650,had a i3 3220 in here for a short time before going back to my i5 and found in some old games like UT3 that my i3 would hold back my gtx650 in some cases,the g1610 is simply clocked lower then the i3 3220 and without ht so i could imagine it being much worst.

 

[UaVaj]

without the intended resolution, the intended iq and the intended fps. and lastly without the intended game.

hard to determine which will bottleneck.

G1610 is no slouch.

 

[styrafoam]

If it were for a friend/family member : the price difference from a 7750 to a 7790 is too small to not get the 7790. The computer is a processor hand me down away from being acceptable, put the money towards something with a little more leg room rather than be faced with something that will only be useful for as long as the comp remains un-upgraded.


If i were just trying to dump unused parts: As much as i would hate to game on a 9600gso, throw one of those in there. You are just pushing the price of the computer up by $100 by putting in a new video card and sort of defeating the purpose of a bargain second hand computer. Probably also putting yourself in the low end off the shelf price territory price wise. Anyone who wants to game on it can spend their own money and make their own decision as to what their price/performance threshold is.

 

[Jimzz]

I agree, the 7790 is a good fit. Maybe held back a little but as said the price differance is so small get the 7790 and be happy.

That and if you get a better CPU in the future the 7790 should still be good.

 

[frozentundra123456]

7770 and add 4GB of ram

This sounds about right to me.

 

[laputan machine]

When I had a g850 (2.9 ghz SB dual core) a 7750 was the bottleneck more often than the other way around. A 7770 or a 7790 sounds like a good pick.

 

[FalseChristian]

You should get 3 Titans for some tri-SLI goodness. (Just joking around.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

The general idea was to try to sell it, possibly on Craigslist.

I know I mentioned the 30GB SSD. What drive should I use? The SSD would make for a snappy web-browsing machine, but if I sell it as a gaming rig, it needs storage space for games. Putting in both, would seem to be a bit cost-prohibitive.

I tried installing a 120GB IDE HDD and an IDE-to-SATA adapter. Tried three of the HDDs and two of the adapters. Couldn't get them to work. HDD didn't want to spin up with the adapter plugged in. It was the strangest thing.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Had one of those ide adapters when i got i believe a ecs g33 or g41 mobo and realized ide was not supported and well i had a ide dvd rom,so much fun trying to get the rom to work and i burnt the second one somehow and in frustration i ended up getting a sata dvd rom.....very flaky and hit and miss as far as my experience goes.

 

[crashtech]

If it's for craigslist, don't throw good money after bad, use what you have!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I've got a pair of 8GB DDR3-1600 kits, some PCI-E wireless N cards, and a pair of 3TB HDDs, and a pair of 7790s enroute.

The two 3TB drives will go into my main rig, to back up my server, then I can part out the drives from my server (five 1TB), and put one each in the gaming rigs.

I haven't decided about whether to put the 7790s into the gaming rigs to sell, or whether to put them into my two Q9300 @ 3.0 quad-core rigs for DC work, thus freeing up a pair of HD4850 512MB cards.

I looked on ebay at 9600GSO cards, there were a few for $30 and $50, but most were $80-120. Even for the DDR2 versions.

 

[crashtech]

A quick look shows completed listings of 9600GSOs selling for $20-30.

 

[el etro]

I know you already have the G1610 when you opened the topic, but i really want to show you Crysis 3 running on a Pentium G620+GTX 670(!!) and peaking to 15FPS or less at 1440x900 in a non fighting scene on med settings(i'm serious about this). Will be funny if i tell you that same rig could max out Crysis 2(with tons of textures mod) and BF3 singleplayer at 1080p(i'm serious again).

 

[VirtualLarry]

I wonder how the G620 performs in games compared to the G1610. Both are 2.6Ghz. But the G620 has 3MB L3 cache and is limited to DDR3-1066 RAM, whereas the G1610 only has 2MB L3 cache, but has DDR3-1333 RAM. Plus the G1610 has about 5% IPC improvement from SB to IB, and it's also cheaper.

(As an aside, it amazes me that Intel is so draconian about limiting RAM speeds on their lower-end, even non-Celeron CPUs.)

Edit: So what is the best choice to put into these budget gaming rigs, out of these choices, as far as non-bottlenecking, and likelyhood to actually sell on Craigslist, and return on investment:

1) 9600GSO 96SP 384MB GDDR3 ($80) $30
2) HD4850 512MB GDDR3 ($165) $40-50
3) 7790 1GB GDDR5 ($125) $140

Those are the prices I paid for each of those cards, followed by how much their current market value is worth.

Edit: did some perusing of Craigslist for an hour. Most gaming rigs are $650-900, many AMD quad/hex/octo core systems. Not so many Intel.

There was one rig for $180, with 4GB DDR3, an i5-750, and a 9600GT video card, with a 30GB SSD and a 160GB HDD. Almost wanted to buy that one myself for a friend of mine. Seemed like a good deal.