Graphics card question for Acer X1420G-U5832; is this a good upgrade?

[Darkwiz]

I know I'm not the only one that's sought to upgrade this particular computer, having seen two previous threads here about the same computer and an upgrade involving a Sapphire ATI Radeon 5570 HD. I know that will work without much issue. However, I want to see if I can go further with the same minimalist upgrading. Because of this, I made an account here in hopes of getting some answers.

I am currently looking at this card, also from Sapphire. Only, this one's higher end, being a Radeon 6570 HD found here. For those curious about the 5570 HD, that's here. I have looked at its benchmarks and it looks promising, but I have two questions.

First, is this a sufficient upgrade compared to the HD 5570? It's only a few dollars difference, but I'm seeking the best performance that I can get without doing a ton of upgrades. Second, it looks like it'll fit (looking at the card, it seems to be a low profile, which is necessary), but if anyone has the same computer, perhaps one can be a better gauge of that? Thanks for any answers anyone can give.

 

[Wishmaster]

Have a look at some of the benchmarks here:
AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB & HD 6570 512MB Review - Page 7

They also had this to say in conclusion:

When compared to the HD 5670 and HD 5570- the Turks-based HD 6670 and HD 6570 are superior in every way. Even though a generation to generation performance increase of 10-15% may not seem like a big step, attaining this without changing the manufacturing process while maintaining the same power envelope is no small feat.

It does seem to be a bit faster although not by a huge margin.
If you already have the 5570 and looking to upgrade ... it may not be worth doing.

However, if its a matter of which one to get, the 6570 certainly seems to be the better card.

Look around a bit too. You may be able to get the next step up for the same price. Lots of sales going on ATM.



OH and BTW, Sapphire are probably the best choice for ATI card IMHO

 

[Darkwiz]

That's kind of the issue. To clarify with the computer, it's a SFF model. So I don't know if I can go much higher. If I stick with Sapphire (and for that matter, Newegg), the best low-profile they seem to have available is the 6570, even on Sapphire's own website. For the $60-70 range, though, it might be worth the few extra dollars.

Also, those are the exact benchmarks I looked at beforehand. But I'll admit that others are more tech savvy than I am, so I felt asking here was still the best choice of action before putting my money where my mouth is.

EDIT: I don't have either card at present. If I did already have the 5570, then yeah, I'd be in agreement that it's not enough to warrant an upgrade. But I will keep looking. That's how I got this far.

 

[Wishmaster]

I would get the 6570 then, if it meets the budget amount.

The price difference between the two seems to only be about $5 at the moment (for a 10-15% performance gain)
So, yes, Id say its worth it.
Especially considering it also meets the requirements you need.


Others may have different opinons, or even a better option.

 

[Darkwiz]

Thanks, that's what I'm hoping. I'll be keeping this open if anyone has a better idea.

 

[Darkwiz]

Okay, I have another question. I've managed to find a 2GB variant of the 6570. Now, I doubt an extra gig of VRAM will make that much of a difference and thus not be worth an additional $15-20 (I'm aiming for sub-$100, so options are still open), but would it use much more power than the 1GB card in my original post? Reviews are saying it'll work in as low as a 250W power supply, but as mine's a bit lower at 220W, I'd rather make sure beforehand.

If it helps, it's still a Sapphire card.

 

[stormy13]

Save the money as the 6570 isn't fast enough to take advantage of the extra GB of memory.

 

[Darkwiz]

I know, I know, this thread's a shade old now. However, I didn't mark it as solved just in case I still had questions and the thread didn't become too old. So, yeah, yet another question of sorts. Apparently, Sapphire has recently released a low-profile 6670 HD. From my understanding, this would be even better due to not only it being slightly higher end, but also a faster memory option (GDDR5; the 6570's only DDR3). It'll still fit within the price range I've aimed for, but I still have concerns for power draw. To compare, the 6570 uses 44W, its GDDR5 cousin uses 60W, and the 6670 uses 66W sll of these under typical load. Going by the review posted above, the total draw still falls just under 220W even on their test machines. My question, yet again, is this: is it enough of an upgrade to warrant a higher price ($35 more than the 6570, at $100). I'm currently leaning towards yes due to the faster memory it'd offer and having some extra oomph aside, but I'd also like to know if it's worth taking a chance due to the 50% increase in wattage. As always, any answers/opinions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[stormy13]

One thing you have to remember is that that 220W power supply you have is not 220W on the 12V rail, but the combined total of all rails (3.3V, 5V and others). Without knowing the full specs of the power supply in that Acer, at a guess I would say you actually have less than 150W on the 12V rail (which is what the card runs on) which if you look here,

AMD Radeon HD 6670 1 GB Review - Page 20/26 | techPowerUp

they actually measure what the card draws instead of the system total wattage. They have the 6670 at 42W average, which when added to your CPU (which draws around 95W at load) doesn't leave a whole lot left for the rest of the components that require power.

 

[Darkwiz]

I just did some quick checking, both on what the power supply is and its ratings. That can be found here. Unless I'm wrong in the calculations I did, you'd be about right; the maximum wattage for the 12V rail is 168 (14 Amps x 12 Volts). Which would leave only about 31W after both are considered, or 23W under peak load. If my monitor runs off the same rail, then that only leaves 10W for whatever else runs off that rail. Which is probably everything that isn't the HDD or disc drives, I'm guessing.

 

[stormy13]

The monitor is one thing connected that doesn't draw from the power supply as it has its own power, same for anything else that has an external power source (printers, modem/router, etc). Mouse, keyboard, hard drive(s), optical drives, memory, etc; those all are powered from the power supply.

Just fed your system specs here,

eXtreme Outer Vision - eXtreme tools for computer enthusiasts

which when paired with the 6670 comes in at around 203W system total, with a recommended of 253W. Basically comes down to a good quality 300-350 watt PSU would do, but with yours adding the card would really be pushing it. If you can fit it into the budget and aren't afraid of upgrading the PSU something like this,

Newegg.com - SeaSonic SS-300TFX Bronze 300W TFX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies

would be very good to go with the 6670.

 

[Darkwiz]

I might not be factoring everything, but I'm seeing what you mean with the results. My plugging in somehow gave me 6W lower than what you quoted. It'd still be some time before I can actually get the upgrade in the first place, so additional ones aren't out of the question and I've got no problems upgrading the PSU if needed. The only thing I'd need to make sure if that it'd fit in what's essentially a Mini-ITX case, but from what I'm seeing about the supply you linked, it seems to fit in most of those just fine.

It's definitely something I'll keep in consideration, so thanks.

 

[Darkwiz]

Welp, I had this coming. I ended up getting the 6570, since Newegg had it on sale during the weekend. Installing it into the computer itself went well enough, not too many issues in it. After that, it's been nothing but headaches. It'd freeze during most attempts to install the Catalyst drivers, if it didn't randomly fail for one reason or another. Some of these got to a point where I had to run System Restore and even the Startup Repair tool just to get the computer to operate outside of safe mode. I thought I was onto something when I installed only the display drivers (which was successful), but all that did was allow it 2-3 more minutes before a complete system crash and another System Restore to undo the damage.

As it stands, the card's still in the computer, but the drivers aren't installed and it's currently working that way. I'm afraid to now, and at wit's end over the ordeal aside. I doubt it's a power concern; it's got a much lower TDP (44W), and the PSU can handle up to 192 on the 12V rail (16 Amps, not 14 as I first "found"). If there's any assistance that can be given, it'd be appreciated.

EDIT: Attempting the 32-bit display drivers, in case it's some issue with the 64-bit ones despite this computer having full support for x64. Nevermind, I'm stuck having to get the 64-bit drivers if I want to do squat.

 

[Darkwiz]

Possibly a false alarm. Installing an earlier driver (11.5, instead of 11.11) seems to have fixed it for the time. Still, I'm wary of this happening again, so please, if any help can be offered in the event these issues resurface, it'd be greatly appreciated.