My current video card is no longer supported by Radeon and is freezing/glitching a lot, so I am looking for a better card that will fit my current motherboard.
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-SD3P
Video card: Radeon R7-200 Series.
What sort of stuff do you want to do with your computer? Can I assume you don’t plan on doing much gaming or anything?
What is your budget, and what are your feelings on new vs. used vs. refurbished?
Mostly Dungeons and Dragons Online, but looking into maybe Skyrim and others of that type. Budget is up to $200, and will consider refurbished depending on price.
If you’re going to look into gaming at all (even older games like Skyrim) it would also be useful to know your CPU. It looks like your board is the previous AMD socket, so it’s possible your CPU will be more of a limit, and thus you wouldn’t want to buy more GPU than your computer can handle.
Current CPU is an AMD FX-6300 six core. Can it be updated at a decent price?
Your motherboard has a pair of PCI-E 2.0 16x slots for video cards. I think that’s going to be the factor in what kind of video card you can get.
I’m looking at R7 200 cards and they can vary quite a bit. From a 1GB memory up to 4GB memory. Price ranges from just over $100 to nearly $500. If you’re looking to upgrade from what you have, we need to know more about what you have.
I found a Reddit thread with some good suggestions, from someone who has almost the exact same specs as you. (Same MB and video card series.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/l50yem/compatible_gaming_gpu_for_motherboard_gigabyte/
I checked out eBay and lo and behold, here is an 8GB card for less than $200:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284685483783?epid=812115423&hash=item424893bf07:g:SOAAAOSwtNZiJF9R
So it’s plausible to get a pretty good upgrade with your budget, if you don’t mind the uncertainty of buying from a faceless anonymous stranger online.
If you add another $50 to the budget, you can find a new AMD 6500XT or an Nvidia 1650 in that range. Out of those, I’d take the 6500 XT which has its own issues but will outperform the 1650.
If you can’t add $50 (which is fair) then you’re realistically looking for a used card.
That’s the card’s bidding rate, not a “Buy It Now” price. It’s extremely likely the final price will be above $200. Also the 580, while not as bad as the -90 cards, has hefty power requirements for its capabilities, with most places recommending a 500W PSU (though some say a 400W PSU is okay).
@Jophiel: I’m not sure that the 6500XT wouldn’t be overkill for his processor, as we’re talking FX-era here, pre-Ryzen. And it is a 4x card, which is handicapped on even PCI 3.0, and he has PCI 2.0. Do you have any experience with these cards on such systems or know people who do?
That’s why I’m still asking for more information.
Absolutely. It’s not guaranteed to be that price. But a card like that is plausible within the budget. I was skeptical that I’d even find anything on eBay around that price as a bid, but sure enough, I found that right away.
Yes, you might need a bigger PSU. But that’s a possibility with any upgrade. I agree, having more info will be helpful.
When I get home from work tonight I’ll run Belarc and get all the stats on my system.
Well, the question is what’s actually on shelves. You could find a weaker card like a 1050 but if you’re going to be paying $200 for it, what’s the point? The 6500XT does suffer in some titles when it’s on PCI 3.0 (or 2.0) but it’ll still outperform the other new cards you’ll find at that price point. Plus, should he upgrade his CPU/MB at some point, it’ll go along with it.
If we were in an era where you could spend $125 on a 1050Ti or find a used RX580 for $150 then I would say to go that route. Sadly, we’re not and it’s hard to find anything in the $100-$150 range that’s not basically a glorified display adapter. AMD cards below the 400-series no longer have driver support. Looking at “sold” listings on eBay, we’re staring at ~$300 for a working RX580
Edit: I don’t think that the 6500XT is a great card for the money. It’s just the “best” option for the $200-$250 bracket that you can buy without much fuss. I don’t know how much Czarcasm wants to trawl Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp listings for a used card in his area.
On the local (non-eBay) used market, if you can find a 1050Ti for $125 or a GTX 970 or RX480 for $200 or less, those would be strong choices. GTX 1060 3GB is also a possibility.
The RX580 was basically the RX480 with a new BIOS so you might be able to find the older RX480 cheaper but within 5% performance (assuming same memory on each, they came in 4GB and 8GB flavors)
@Jophiel Ah. I was approaching this from the advice I’d seen online to not try and future proof your GPU, especially during current times.
I agree that, if it’s what he can find, obviously get that. But, given how long it’s been since he’s updated his hardware and the games he wants to play, I assumed he wasn’t a massive gamer and that it might actually make sense for him to get a non-gaming card–at least, if he couldn’t find a gaming card for cheap enough. I notice that the GT 1030 GDDR5 is still being sold new, and, while it goes for $140 (double its original MSRP), I do know that it is a rather capable card even with modern titles.
But it really sounds like you know a lot more about this than I do. I may even consider asking you if a friend into gaming asks me for advice. So far, I’ve been good at picking non-gamer laptos for them, but I don’t have as much experience with gaming computers.
That’s a fair bit of advice but he was talking about also upgrading his CPU at some point so I’d figure you want a card that will play well with a modern (albeit probably entry-mid level) CPU and motherboard.
The 1030 can cope with modern games but it’s not great (and will probably lock you out of some stuff due to its 2GB limitation). The 6500 XT might be $100 more but you’ll be getting about 5x the performance for 1.7x the price. This is owing a lot to the ridiculous price tag the 1030 is carrying these days but it is what it is.
Depending on how comfortable one feels buying used hardware, I’d be looking to go that route before spending $140 on a 1030. Glancing at the Portland area FB Marketplace (per OP’s profile page), there’s a number of cards in the sub-$200 range I’d try to pick first: 1050Ti ($175), 1650 ($150), R9 380x ($150), etc. Local stuff tends to be cheaper in my experience since they’re not trying to cover eBay listing fees or shipping in their price.
Update- I got home last night from work and My Beloved says, “I noticed that the computer is freezing up a lot and is really slowing down, so I ordered something from Amazon Prime for $514 that should get here by Monday.” So here is what we are supposedly getting from a “Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher”:
Dell Optiplex 9020 with i5-4570 processor, 16 GB ram, 2 TB hard drive, GTX 1030 graphics card, WiFi, Bluetooth, DVDRW.
The first thing I’ll do is install Belarc and see what I actually got, of course. Does this sound better than what I’ve got now? Will this be an easier system to update?
Looks like you have been given a pretty hefty downgrade. (Or lateral move at best.)
I don’t know; despite the extra cores and higher frequency rate on the FX-6300, the i5 beats it in actual PassMark/CPU Mark benchmarking. Pretty significantly as well: +1000pts in CPU Mark, +3000 in PassMark all-cores.
I assume the i5 system is refurbished/repurposed Dell Optiplex because all those 4th gen i5 systems are repurposed Optiplexes 
If you’re happy to use to it for what it is, it’s probably a bit overpriced but serviceable if your needs are modest. If you plan on having a PC you can upgrade, you’re already close to its limits. You can’t upgrade the GPU much further without changing the PSU and the motherboard has a proprietary power connection so you can’t change the PSU without buying an adapter. One thing you CAN easily do is throw down $25 for a small 120GB SSD and install Windows onto that instead for a much better experience. The good news is that these Optiplexes all have Windows activation baked into their BIOS because they were office machines so you don’t have to worry about Windows activation; just make an install flash drive and load it up on the SSD then wipe the 2TB HDD and use it for your file storage.
How do the two video cards compare (Radeon R7-200 vs. GTX 1030)?
Also, is the GTX 1030 still supported, unlike the Radeon R7 series?
I have some experience with machines like this. The price seems high, but I’ve used a similar combination for my dad who isnt much of a modern gamer, but still plays some games. The GT 1030 was enough for him to run titles as 720p 30fps or so. Granted, we used either a faster older chip (i7 2600) or a newer chip (i5 sixth gen) than the one the OP has.
At least getting it officially refurbished may mean you don’t get one of their notrouously crappy worn out power supplies. Still, I recommend making sure the bios is as up-to-date as possible, to avoid random shutdowns.
It’s significantly better. Assuming that’s the GDDR5 version of the GT1030, it has four times the Passmark score.
While the 1030 isn’t a gaming card, it can game, in my experience. I would consider the R7-200 series today to only be useful to add video support to a machine without integrated graphics. There’s a reason they are selling for like $30 even during the GPU shortage.