Performance issue with GeForce GT 520?

Hello all,

I'm hoping to get some sort of answer to the issues I'm currently facing with my new graphics card. Basically I previously had installed an AMD HD 4850, now the strange thing is... before I replaced it with my new GT 520, my Windows experience index rating for Graphics (Desktop performance for windows Aero) was roughly above 6.

After uninstalling all my ATI drivers and replacing it with the GeForce, I installed the latest drivers and ran the rating again, and my graphics rating dropped to 4.2..... nothing else dropped it was just the graphics. But correct me if i'm wrong, shouldnt the GT 520 be way better than an old AMD 4850?

What's also bizarre is that when i run certain games and they give me the option to optimize graphics based on whatever card you have installed. It sets the graphics as high which the AMD did not, and when i actually go into the game its just pure glitch fest, like its running at 5 FPS which even the AMD did not do at high settings.

Can anyone suggest what the problem may be? Links below to specs of both graphics cards.

ATI Radeon

GeForce GT 520 - GeForce

Much appreciated :)

glassarcher welcome to the Seven Forums.

But correct me if i'm wrong, shouldnt the GT 520 be way better than an old AMD 4850?

Sorry to say but you went from what was a medium-high end card (a little more high than medium), to a low end entry level card. Not even on a good day is the GT 520 a better card than the HD 4850, that is why your WEI score went down and also why you are having issues running games at high settings. You went from a card that depending on the game can run it at high settings without breaking a sweat, to one that would struggle with the same game on medium settings (and quite possibly low settings).

Only solution is if you still have it is to go back to your HD 4850 and return the GT 520, or look for something higher up the video card food chain.

Thanks for the quick reply Stormy, I can definitely understand that being the reason why its dropped. I did have my worries that i might have been buying the wrong card, but from reading the specs from the one i got, it just seemed like it was better than the 4850. It supports DX 11, runs on open GL 4.2 and has 2 GB memory. (Mines a Zotac GT 520 so its not exactly the same as the one on the nvidia site) and the 4850 only supports DX 10 and is a lower open GL version also with only 1 GB memory. As far as everything else goes (graphics clock, processor clock etc) my GT 520 is higher in spec than the AMD. I made sure all the specs were atleast slightly higher before buying it.

Here is the exact one i bought in case your wondering on the spec difference.
(I think it actually is a GTX but the box it came in only says GT, as it does on the image in that link)

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 520 Synergy Edition 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card [ZT-50605-20L]

Here are the two side by side based on specs,

Video Card Comparison - GPUReview.com

Despite having "better" numbers, you can see that the GT 520 has about 1/3 the performance of the HD 4850.

That site is a great help in researching a new video card as not only do the list pretty much every card available today, they have links to multiple review sites so you can see how the cards perform.

Another thing to consider is the cost of the card. When the HD 4850 came out it was around $200.00, where the GT 520 is around the $60.00 mark. All things considering, unless there is a large gap in the time that the cards were released (more than 2 or 3 generations apart), there is no way that a $60 card will out perform a $200 dollar card.

glassarcher said:

Thanks for the quick reply Stormy, I can definitely understand that being the reason why its dropped. I did have my worries that i might have been buying the wrong card, but from reading the specs from the one i got, it just seemed like it was better than the 4850. It supports DX 11, runs on open GL 4.2 and has 2 GB memory. (Mines a Zotac GT 520 so its not exactly the same as the one on the nvidia site) and the 4850 only supports DX 10 and is a lower open GL version also with only 1 GB memory. As far as everything else goes (graphics clock, processor clock etc) my GT 520 is higher in spec than the AMD. I made sure all the specs were atleast slightly higher before buying it.

Here is the exact one i bought in case your wondering on the spec difference.
(I think it actually is a GTX but the box it came in only says GT, as it does on the image in that link)

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 520 Synergy Edition 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card [ZT-50605-20L]

the difference is gpu processing power .. (it is mesured not only in Hz) there is more to it than MHz :)
and 2Gb for economy gpu is overkill it will never use that much memory (its market trick from old times) and its gddr3 when there is gddr5 faster memory.
yes gf520 chip may support more new tachnologies but it is economy class gpu with low processing power i would recommend geting at least geforce 550Ti to have around same or better performance and new technology DX11 etc support.

Ahhhh right all that makes a lot more sense. That's such a useful link too, wish i knew about it before deciding to buy this card hopefully overclockers will let me change it for something better, wish me luck :) and thanks again for all the help