Best Graphics Card ?

[dzien50]

Hi All
I have an " Acer Aspire M3400 64bit PC " Can anybody who knows this PC recommend a very good graphics card that will just plug straight in.
My son tells me that there are no auxillary wires required by some cards ? this means nothing to me but hopefully someone out there can point me in the right direction.
The card currently installed is as follows : Sapphire HD 6570 1GB DDR3 DVI VGA HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card

Cheers
PJ

 

[Beattie]

Hi All
I have an " Acer Aspire M3400 64bit PC " Can anybody who knows this PC recommend a very good graphics card that will just plug straight in.
My son tells me that there are no auxillary wires required by some cards ? this means nothing to me but hopefully someone out there can point me in the right direction.
The card currently installed is as follows : Sapphire HD 6570 1GB DDR3 DVI VGA HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card

Cheers
PJ

If thats a ati 6570 and external then no need at for a better graphics card.

 

[mrscsi]

Well I like my MSI 560 GTX-Ti, it's a nice card but it's not cheap. Depending on the computer's power supply you may need to upgrade that as well when looking at higher-end video cards because some require one or 2-12 V power sources(that's what your son was talking about when he was talking about wires) being that yours doesn't have power running to it leads me to believe that you power supply may not be capable of a high-end video card.

Just a thought

 

[RRSignal]

Here's a potential big problem - what is the rating of your power supply? The PSU can severely limit your options. Before going any further, first let me state that I'm an nVidia man and not an ATI expert. That said, out of curiosity, looked up some specs on your current card. It seems pretty low-end, about on-par with my GT240, which gives me very good results. But your card, as well as mine, are also low-power cards. I had to turn down a GTS250 on sale for a stunning price because my power supply wasn't enough.

 

[fran1]

Hi PJ,
Your present card draws 10-44 watts dependant on use, thats why it's no separate power lead going to it, also why it's a bit duff for trainz.
To give you an idea the ATI 6790 draws 205 watt at full power, but it has 2 power leads.
The ATI 6850 draws 192 watt at full power, 1 power lead.
Trainz will not use a decent card at full power, 25-50% max.
Check the power output of your power supply unit, you want to be looking at 500-700 watt.
The 12 volt rail amp output is the one to look at dependant on the card you get. Say the card specs want 30 amp at 12v thats the figure to look for on the PSU.
I'll now leave you totally confused.
By the way I just happen to have a 700 watt psu with 25 amp@12v, 2x6 pin pci-e conns, and all the cables to go with it, looking for a new home

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi All
I have an " Acer Aspire M3400 64bit PC " Can anybody who knows this PC recommend a very good graphics card that will just plug straight in.
My son tells me that there are no auxillary wires required by some cards ? this means nothing to me but hopefully someone out there can point me in the right direction.
The card currently installed is as follows : Sapphire HD 6570 1GB DDR3 DVI VGA HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card

Cheers
PJ

Could you be nice and run Belarc for me? It will give the cpu, memory, video etc. I'm trying to get a feel for what you have and see what the easiest items are to upgrade.

Generally speaking ACER packages are fairly balanced, translation it can be difficult to touch one thing without upsetting something else.

Thanks John

 

[pcas1986]

I went through this problem a couple of years back. I haven't bought "computer packages" for years but rather update components from time to time by going to computer fairs.

However, the last time I bought a new video card I discovered it required two power leads directly from the transformer (power supply). Most PC cards get their power directly from the motherboard but modern fast graphics cards require much more power. So it was a late Saturday afternoon dash down to a local computer store to buy a Seasonic M12 700W power supply. That was a nice package and it came with all the power leads and adapters you could need. Don't recall the price but it wasn't cheap.


I could be wrong but I believe most desktop PCs (not net/laptops) use the ATX12V and EPS12V specs. This means you can just remove and replace the power supply. Though I'm not sure this applies to Acers.

The other point to consider is whether your new video card will physically fit inside your case. The newer cards tend to be very large, with large heat sinks and additional fans, plus they are longer than the old cards. In addition, the extra power leads sometimes fit on the end of the card towards the front of the case making the installation more difficult. That was an issue in my Antec case. The Antec case is the oldest part of my configuration but it is a very nice looking case and far better looking than the current crop of boring black cases.

I guess my point is that, if your current card gives decent Trainz performance, then the upgrade may not be worth the effort, cost and risk.

Paul

 

[clam1952]

If the power supply can handle the requirements, you can get an adapter from the standard molex plug (hard drive) to the ones required on the card, both my current cards included one in the box, not that I needed them.

 

[dzien50]

Thanks all, although I think I'm more confused ?
John, I have run " belarc " but there is a ton of info, can you tell me exactly which bits you want to know. just looking I cannot see what the wwattage is and my son says this is important as if I get this wrong it could blow up my motherboard ? not got a clue what hes on about !!!!
Cheers
PJ

 

[Gandalf0444]

Thanks all, although I think I'm more confused ?
John, I have run " belarc " but there is a ton of info, can you tell me exactly which bits you want to know. just looking I cannot see what the wwattage is and my son says this is important as if I get this wrong it could blow up my motherboard ? not got a clue what hes on about !!!!
Cheers

Don't worry about being confused it is a lot to take in, not to mention there are a lot of different opinions and which is better for everything.
Meaning to much wattage? If so then not really possible unless the power supply is defective from the start. You can take a 1500W PSU and hook it up to a lower end motherboard and it will work fine, it will just be useless.
To little? Then yes it could burn out the motherboard as well as other components. Wouldn't happen instantly, but it would happen over a length of months, or even years.

 

[johnwhelan]

Thanks all, although I think I'm more confused ?
John, I have run " belarc " but there is a ton of info, can you tell me exactly which bits you want to know. just looking I cannot see what the wwattage is and my son says this is important as if I get this wrong it could blow up my motherboard ? not got a clue what hes on about !!!!
Cheers
PJ

Belarc will give the cpu, memory and graphic card details. It won't give the power supply details and to be honest what is on the power supply is suspect on a budget machine.

Have a read here about power supplies.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/low-cost-psu-pc-power-supply,2862.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-oem-manufacturer,2913.html

What I'm looking for from the Belarc information is anything that can be upgraded easily without putting extra lead on the power supply. Memory might be one example. The existing graphics card might be another. Certain graphics cards have lower lower requirements than others. If you are very lucky we can find one that draws less power but performs better.

On the other hand if it looks like you have a reasonable cpu. memory and graphics card then perhaps just adjusting the performance sliders or using the tools to replace demanding assets with performance friendly ones might be a more cost effective answer.

This link gives a comparison for different graphic cards by the way.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card-game-performance-radeon-hd-6670,2935-7.html

Cheerio John

 

[cascaderailroad]

I should have splurged and upgraded my puney 300 Watt Lite-On (factory) power supply, to a heavier one ($80 + $ 50 instalation), then I could have bought a really high wattage video card.

Being that I was limited to a 300 Watt power supply, I bought the (off the big box store shelf) Galaxy Nvidia GeForce 430 video card for @ $90.

It works pretty darn good though and framerates are somewhat smooth as glass.

 

[johnwhelan]

I should have splurged and upgraded my puney 300 Watt Lite-On (factory) power supply, to a heavier one ($80 + $ 50 instalation), then I could have bought a really high wattage video card.

Being that I was limited to a 300 Watt power supply, I bought the (off the big box store shelf) Galaxy Nvidia GeForce 430 video card for @ $90.

It works pretty darn good though and framerates are somewhat smooth as glass.

And I think that is a very reasonable approach, if the frame rates are fine then life is good unless you want bragging rights about how easy it is to fry an egg on your computer.

Cheerio John

 

[dzien50]

Hi John
Is this what you want ?
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]System Security Status[/FONT]

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[SIZE=+1]Computer Profile Summary[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Computer Name: [/SIZE][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Profile Date: [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]08 June 2011 00:13:49[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Advisor Version: [/SIZE][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Windows Logon: [/SIZE][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][SIZE=-1][/SIZE] Plan for your next computer refresh...
click for Belarc's System Management products Operating System new – server roles System ModelWindows 7 Home Premium (x64) Service Pack 1 (build 7601)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United Kingdom)
Installed: 24/04/2011 15:25:32 Acer Aspire M3400
System Serial Number: PTSE0E20280250838A2700
Enclosure Type: DesktopProcessor a Main Circuit Board b2.60 gigahertz AMD Phenom II X6 1035T
768 kilobyte primary memory cache
3072 kilobyte secondary memory cache
6144 kilobyte tertiary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (6 total)
Not hyper-threaded AMD Radeon HD 6500 Series [Display adapter]
DELL E207WFP [Monitor] (20.0"vis, s/n XX-0CK627-XXXXX-71J-17WL, January 2007)


Board: Acer Aspire M3400
Serial Number: U02G102503674
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. P01-A2 04/21/2010
I m sorry but I really don't know what I'm looking at
Cheers
PJ

 

[dzien50]

Hi All
Re my problem. I think it might help if I give you some background.
This is where I come from : I sold my business and retired long before the internet and PCs took hold and I had no interest in them.
My kids pursuded me to get a laptop for news/football and email and that was it.
Due to illness I had to stop work on my " real " model railway and in 2006 heard about Trainz and got TRS 2006 and a PC on which to run it and nothing else, and it run very well.
Recently I've upgraded to TS12 and also had to get a new PC but it runs worse than TRS2006, a bit jerky and items taking time to load when in tracking mode ( I did not have this in TRS2006 )
Trainz is the only computer game I have EVER played and to be honest I have no interest in computers at all.
I just want trainz to run well and smooth. Most simple computer chat is to me "jargon " sorry but thats how it is.
I was just hoping someone would say " yes I know that system you need XYZ card and all will run well !
I'm sure with your help I'll get there in the end
Cheers
PJ

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi All
Re my problem. I think it might help if I give you some background.
This is where I come from : I sold my business and retired long before the internet and PCs took hold and I had no interest in them.
My kids pursuded me to get a laptop for news/football and email and that was it.
Due to illness I had to stop work on my " real " model railway and in 2006 heard about Trainz and got TRS 2006 and a PC on which to run it and nothing else, and it run very well.
Recently I've upgraded to TS12 and also had to get a new PC but it runs worse than TRS2006, a bit jerky and items taking time to load when in tracking mode ( I did not have this in TRS2006 )
Trainz is the only computer game I have EVER played and to be honest I have no interest in computers at all.
I just want trainz to run well and smooth. Most simple computer chat is to me "jargon " sorry but thats how it is.
I was just hoping someone would say " yes I know that system you need XYZ card and all will run well !
I'm sure with your help I'll get there in the end
Cheers
PJ

My wife just uses computers as well. If I go back to your first post where it mentions a Sapphire HD 6570 1GB DDR3 then look that up on the hierarchy list it's quite respectable. I run a HD 5850 and its not that far off.

Looking at the Sapphire site a "400 Watt Power Supply is required" not terribly useful information since you only have a 300 watt power supply.

That information came from anandtech by the way. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3823/acer-aspire-m3400-budget-desktop/2

Sometimes we can drop in a 40 nm graphics card in place of a 55 nm one and squeeze a bit more performance out of the available power but you already have a 40 nm part. The DDR5 version would give a very small increase in performance and draw less current but its not worth the trouble.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6570-radeon-hd-6670-turks,2925.html

Anandtech's review basically says you need to replace the power supply to do any upgrades and I think I concur.

I would go for something around the $175 mark here

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card-game-performance-radeon-hd-6670,2935-3.html

I'd stay with AMD ie get another HD card as you'll have fewer driver problems.

I'd ask your son nicely if he could switch the power supply for you. A computer store will typically charge you $50 for opening the case. This side of the Atlantic I'd probably use newegg, in the UK Amazon aren't bad pick out a card that has DDR5 memory rather than one that has ddr3.

Power supplies SeaSonic has a good reputation you need to match the video card but UK electric prices aren't cheap so 1000 watts is probably overkill. I'd suggest something around 500-520 watts and 80 plus for efficiency. Use your offspring for advice here, he might know enough to validate the recommendation.

Have a look at the pricing and see if its acceptable.

Perhaps others might like to comment about how much video card you need for TS12.

Thanks John

 

[dzien50]

Thanks John
My son knows how to swop cards around etc so he can fit it for me.
To sum up then I should just get a Radeon HD6850 card and this will slot in/replace the current card and should give me a better performance. Is this right ?
Cheers
PJ

 

[sniper297]

Doin the herky-jerky

FYI the graphics card is not the biggest bottleneck for train simulators, it's the hard disk. The fast processor and fast memory and fast video card can only process information as fast as the hard disk can find it and send it to them, 90% of the time when you get "stuttering" video animation, it's because the rest of the system is waiting for files from the hard disk. Bigger hard disks ain't necessarily better, what you're looking for is lower "seek time" and faster transfer speeds. I'd try one of them newfangled solid state hard disks if I could afford one.

Oh, and by the way, I discovered computers and flight simulators 30 years ago, was always looking for a train simulator. Finally found one in 2001, crawled out from under my model railroad benchwork, and haven't burned my fingers on a soldering iron or had to dig wet plaster out of my ears since. :hehe:

 

[pcas1986]

Belarc doesn't provide the power supply maximum wattage - or rather it didn't when I ran it on my machine. The maximum wattage should be on the compliance sticker on the power supply. You will need to pull the cover off for that. And hope the label is on the visible side.

Cheers Paul

 

[dzien50]

The wattage of my Acer is only 300w which apparently is quite poor, but the card john suggests seems to have wattage of 150w so should be ok, but there again somewhere it says my machine should be 400/500w for this card !! this does not make any sense to me as the card is only 150w ? so why the extra wattage required ? will it blow my machine up or not work ?
Why can't they keep things simple !!
Cheers
PJ