Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Resolved Question

Help picking a graphics card for upgrade

Mar 3, 2015 12:19AM PST

Have an ASUS CM1730 with Athlon II 2.80 GHZ processor and ATI Radeon 3000 graphics card. The card lists as 256 MB of dedicated memory with 1663 MB of shared system memory. It has Direct X Version 10, and the driver version is 8.863.0.0. The Work Experience Index for the card is 4.5, while other system Work Indexes are all over 5.6. I want to upgrade the graphics capabilities, preferably using a new 1 GB card. ASUS gave me some recommendations, but they either are not available anymore or else have very poor performance test scores. This is not a gaming machine, but is now being used to search the internet extensively and higher graphics speed is desirable. My budget is under $ 100. Any recommendations?

Discussion is locked

oiptoner has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

- Collapse -
I believe the GTX750 is right at that price.
Mar 3, 2015 3:27AM PST

If on sell maybe you could get it at $80. However, it says PSU should be at least 400w. I believe your computer now has only 300w...but it may or may not be good enough since you are not using this for gaming.

- Collapse -
Maybe, but
Mar 3, 2015 3:40AM PST

the GTX750 - Ti only requires a 300 watt PS and has about the same performance. Both may be overkill, however, as the machine will not be used for any serious gaming (if at all). Thanks for the recommendation.

- Collapse -
Answer
Here's where I get my ideas from.
Mar 3, 2015 12:39AM PST
- Collapse -
Power supply
Mar 3, 2015 3:29AM PST

Identified as AC BEL HBA008-2A1GT. +12 V is 13.0 amps. Of course, power supplies are cheap if I need to swap it out. Still, I get your point.

Two cards I am looking at are the PNY Verto GeForce® GT 730 - 1 GB - GDDR5 - 64 Bit, and the ASUS GeForce GT730 -1 GB- GDDR3 - 64 Bit.

- Collapse -
Too low end in my opinion.
Mar 3, 2015 3:39AM PST
- Collapse -
Will GTX 750 - Ti work?
Mar 3, 2015 4:53AM PST

I hadn't looked at it before, but the GTX 750 - Ti intrigues me. Yes, I understand your very practical suggestion to leave well enough alone, but bigger, better, faster is bred into Americans. And the Ti version is said to draw only about 60 watts. Therefore, will the GTX 750 - Ti work on my platform, and will it provide the graphic speed increases I want? Also, is my MOBO with it's single PCI-e x16 slot set up to handle this PCI-e 3.0 board? Lastly, are there any downsides to this upgrade?

- Collapse -
That I can't answer.
Mar 3, 2015 5:45AM PST

No one should state it works in all PCs. A few have trouble with ATI or Nvidia and we swap for the other when that happens.

As to the 3.0 question, so far PCIe 3.0 cards work in PCIe 1.0 to 3.x slots. On that, should be no issue.
Bob

- Collapse -
I don't think you can get the 750ti for under $100.
Mar 3, 2015 11:55AM PST

I think the Ti comes with 2Gb or more. I see they are going for $140-$160. I don know about the 750ti but I I recalled the 750 don't have the separate pcie connection.