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Dishe
Participating Frequently
June 26, 2018
Question

Question about GPU and/or computer upgrade on extreme budget

  • June 26, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 1703 views

My current spec- don't laugh - is an i7 2600, GT520, 16GB RAM, and 3 internal drives (128GB SSD, 1.5TB and 2TB). Its actually held up remarkably well for danged well nearly a DECADE, which is longer than I've ever owned any single computer and ever expected to.
It actually still performs well enough for virtually all of my work even today, especially since I'm still working primarily in 1080p timelines, but I'm starting to shoot more footage in 4k since some of the more modern cameras do better in that scaled down to 1080 than they take in 1080p natively. With 4k, my system is finally showing its age, though.
I'm wondering what I can do to improve performance without investing too much into this- I'm currently saving up for some camera gear which would actually improve my workflow, so anything over $500 might need to wait until later. I *can* continue with this box for a bit longer (surprisingly), so my budget beyond that is difficult to justify.

My options, as I see them:
1)Upgrade the GPU. The GT520 quite frankly sucks to today's standards. It was just OK even when I got it, but it was something decent compared to on board graphics, and didn't require a PSU upgrade. I feel like it won't help the fact that the rest of my system is very old, however, and in the end I want something that will improve performance on more than just Adobe (handbrake, Acid Pro, Vegas, and other tools get used in my system as well, and they don't all get such dramatic bumps from GPU improvements as they do CPU).
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2)Buy a new computer. The Dell Outlet has some models that get close for me to use as a starting point within my budget. With current coupon codes and just over $600, I can get a 7th gen i7 with a GT730/2GB and 16gb ram. I can probably sell my old desktop for a couple of hundred dollars (I'd take out the drives to use with this one), or at the very least donate it to a school or something and get a $100 tax right off- ether way, that puts the new Dell into my budget at the end of the day. But I'm not sure how I feel about a GT730. I mean, its better than what I have now, granted, but I understand that the integrated GPU on the Intel chips have been getting significantly better in later generations. I'm not sure if a lower end card is even an advantage if I'm not doing any gaming or anything like that with it. For like $20 more there's one available with a GT1030, which I guess is better, but I'm still suspicious of any card Dell would include in a build- are they worth anything, or should I just assume I need to buy my own graphics card after the fact and/or stick with software rendering only? Someone talk some sense into me, as I clearly don't know how this works!

3) Build my own / upgrade the guts of my old 2600 box. I keep thinking about this, but parts are just so much more expensive vs prebuilts. Also, I'm not entirely sure the box I have will accept a new motherboard, its a Gateway branded box (before Asus bought them- that's how old it is! LOL), and it may require proprietary shaped clearances and connectors. I priced out a new build with the minimum specs I'd want once I'm starting over, and it was well over my budget.

Any help is appreciated!

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    1 reply

    R
    RjL190365
    Legend
    June 26, 2018

    Given your low budget, option 1) would be your best choice. I'd eliminate option 2) because although you'd be getting "newer" parts, you'd still end up with a woefully imbalanced hardware configuration (performance-wise); the GPU would still be woefully underpowered compared to the CPU (the Dell version of the GT 730, although it uses the Kepler-generation GK208 GPU with 384 CUDA cores, is handicapped by its choice of only DDR3 memory instead of the faster GDDR5 memory). I'd eliminate option 3) because the parts that are needed to achieve a meaningful overall performance improvement are still a lot more expensive than you really wanted to spend.

    And if you're going to be working with 4k material more or less directly, my choice would be to simply upgrade the GPU to a 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and get it over with, based on your limited upgrade budget. That will bring the performance balance between the CPU and the GPU much closer to one another. That card does not require an additional power connection, unlike higher-end GPUs. And although it (by itself) uses roughly twice as much power as your current GT 520, it shouldn't pose any problems. However, if you still don't trust your Gateway's power supply unit to handle the small amount of additional power, then I would recommend the GeForce GT 1030 - but be sure to choose the original GDDR5 version of that GPU and not its newer and weaker DDR4 variant.

    And DO upgrade the GPU ASAP: Driver support for all Fermi GPUs (yes, that includes the GT 520, the GT 610 and the 128-bit version of the GT 730) ended after version 390 branch of the Nvidia GeForce driver set (the GeForce driver set is now at version branch 396, which now requires a Kepler or newer GPU just to even work at all). From now until January 2019, only critical security patches will be released for these Fermi GPUs, after which drivers for those GPUs will simply be archived. And eventually, future releases of Premiere Pro CC will no longer support Fermi GPUs at all for MPE GPU acceleration.

    D
    DisheAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 27, 2018

    Thanks for the response! Interesting- I see a lot of talk about the system being "balanced" around here, and while I understand the sentiment behind it, I still don't understand why an upgrade of the entire system wouldn't be a more vast improvement in my case.
    The GPU upgrade would help with the MPE acceleration in my current box and likely make premiere scrub through the timeline faster (forgot to mention, I'm on CS6, if that matters), but like I mentioned before, I have other tools that I use that are mostly CPU speed reliant which would get little benefit to the GPU upgrade versus a newer system.
    I mean, the thing that gets me is that you're pointing out the GT730 on the newer Dell has "only DDR3 memory", but I just realized my entire stinkin' system is currently running on DDR3 memory! That's what was standard when this motherboard came out and it doesn't support faster! I don't see how a new box that uses newer architecture and faster bus, faster memory, and yes- even a faster GPU than the one I have, even if its somehow "imbalanced", all the parts are an improvement over what I have now so everything should be improved, shouldn't it?

    I guess what I'm asking is, why would an "imbalanced" newer system like the one I mentioned from Dell be less preferable than balancing my current system? Maybe I'm not understanding why balance is so important.

    Meanwhile, I did mention that for about $20 more I can get a model of the Dell with a GT1030 /2GB GDDR5. If the 730 would really be so awful, maybe that's worth another couple of Hamiltons? Or do you still think the GPU on my old 2600-based box would be the best bang for my buck?

    R
    RjL190365
    Legend
    June 27, 2018

    The reason why an "imbalanced" newer system is less preferable is that a severely underpowered GPU relative to the CPU can, and does, make the CPU perform a lot weaker than it should. In fact, the GT 730 could make the i7-7700 perform more like a 10-year-old Core 2 Quad with that latter CPU mated to a GTX 1050, in terms of CPU-only performance. That's not what you want.

    As for the additional $20 for the GT 1030 GDDR5 in the Dell system, then yes, it is well worth the minimal extra cost. Had you mentioned it in your original post, then that would be my first choice, with a simple GPU upgrade to your current system being my alternative choice.

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