# Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor. Help needed for new graphic card.



## iwannaberockstar (Nov 9, 2013)

I took a sabbatical from gaming for a year and a half, to focus on other things. As expected, I am needing an upgrade now.

But there is a slight dilemma. I have a not-so-new PC configuration(as compared to what I generally see people here having). But I am more than satisfied with that. A huge laughing point might be the fact that i still am using a 17 Inch CRT monitor...don't ask why, I just love it and am not gonna upgrade it ASAP. May do it after a few months though...

My budget is ₹6000-7000(±500 MAYBE)

So, my current specifications are as follows:

Processor- Intel Core 2 duo E7400@2.8GHz
Current GPU- XFX 8600GT
PSU- Corsair GS500
Mother Board- MSI P45 Neo 3
Ram- 4GB DDR2
Monitor- Samsung Syncmaster CRT 17 inch
OS- Windows XP 32 bit.



Now, what happened is my trusty OLD graphics card just finally had his last breath yesterday. Its idle temperature for a while was showing as around 65• Celsius, ofcourse it was overheating. And since the last 2 days, it automatically went on to the lowest possible resolution, around 800*400 and showing just 4 bit colours,and isn't even changing back. Since my motherboard doesn't have an onboard graphics chip, I am guessing that the graphics card finally buckled...( I am right, yes? )

So, I am gonna buy a new card ASAP. Herein lies my dilemma. I had asked a query here about one and a half years ago, and a couple of you guys told me to get a AMD 7770. And now on going through the forum and the sticky again, I saw the SAME 7770 prescribed for my budget(which is now costlier!), along with the 7750 and the older 6770 ofcourse. In this one and a half year, was no headway made in the graphic card department in the aforementioned budget???

So guys/girls(?!) , kindly suggest me an awesome card. Also, like I said, I might upgrade my monitor to a 22 inch one LCD/LED one , but after a few months. So a little future proofing is required too. So, currently I just game in 1024*768 resolution. And want ALL the bells and whistles turned on.
Also, I don't want to ditch my Windows XP , as I simply Love and treasure it. And also, I cant afford a brand new Windows 7 and don't want to pirate either...but might do if the advantage over XP is HUGE(DirectX11 and stuff).  Should I?

Sorry for the huge post people.

TL;DR : Want a new graphics card in the range of ₹6000-7000(±500), and currently using a 17 inch CRT monitor. Is my Windows XP ok?


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## ico (Nov 9, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*

yeah, nothing has changed.

HD 7750, HD 6770 and HD 7770 are your options depending on your budget.

yes, you should look for moving to Windows 7. DirectX 11 is Windows 7 only. Windows XP is a 12 year old Operating System now. I won't laugh at you for having a CRT monitor, because it's normal still but in 2003, everyone used to laugh at people running Windows 3.11 (12 year old in 2003).


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## rijinpk1 (Nov 9, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*

also install a 64 bit windows 7. you will be amazed by its performance over xp.also it is more secure than xp


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## gagan_kumar (Nov 10, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*



rijinpk1 said:


> also install a 64 bit windows 7. you will be amazed by its performance over xp.also it is more secure than xp



but still i think xp was most successful windows till now........


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## quicky008 (Nov 10, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*



Spoiler






iwannaberockstar said:


> I took a sabbatical from gaming for a year and a half, to focus on other things. As expected, I am needing an upgrade now.
> 
> But there is a slight dilemma. I have a not-so-new PC configuration(as compared to what I generally see people here having). But I am more than satisfied with that. A huge laughing point might be the fact that i still am using a 17 Inch CRT monitor...don't ask why, I just love it and am not gonna upgrade it ASAP. May do it after a few months though...
> 
> ...






Your system isn't really as antiquated as you may think- I know some people who still use older socket 478 based P4/celeron cpus with just 256/512 MB RAM and 40 GB Hdds-so your system can be regarded as fairly powerful despite being well over 3 years old.Do as other members have suggested-upgrade your gpu to radeon HD 6770-as you don't need earth-shattering performance in most of the games that you intend to play,this card will suffice for your needs.And upgrading from XP to win 7 64 bit will be a good move-xp is a pretty decent OS but it doesn't support certain newer apis like Direct X 10/11 without which most new games simply won't work.


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## rijinpk1 (Nov 10, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*



gta0gagan said:


> but still i think xp was most successful windows till now........



it has got changed to windows 7. also microsoft is going to drop the support for windows xp


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## topgear (Nov 10, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*

XP enjoyed a greater period of time on the market and from MS before the next major windows release ie vista which was an epic fail. Then more people got xp untill windows 7 came into the market. That clearly shows for how long xp enjoyed a good competition free time from it's creators. Same can't be said about windows 7 with windows 8 already pushing it out of the boundary - partially for MS and partially for declining pc sales figure, release of lots of touch friendly samrtphones and such os on the market but still windows 7's sales figure is closing in to xp. Here's a link 
With 600 million sales, Windows 7 closes on XP | ZDNet


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## anirbandd (Nov 14, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*

@OP: i feel you bro.. i had a CRT until a few months ago. 

and this i'll tell you: it has amazing color reproduction, that'll will bring most LCD monitors to shame. so its nothing to be ashamed off. 

now, on your question, you can go with the HD7770, but it will be overkill for the resolution. but hey, you get to play every game with full high gfx settings 

only thing you need to be aware of is that the CPU may bottleneck the GPU at that res. i faced it.


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## iwannaberockstar (Nov 18, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*

Yeah man, the colour reproduction on the CRT is just amazing and I think that that's the reason that i held on to it for so long 

The CPU might bottleneck the GPU...but I don't think by much. I mean 2.8 GHz, dual core.....I still think it has still got the juices left for a couple of years more...what do you guys think?

Also, I FINALLY got the Sapphire 7770 GHz Edition, 1GB DDR5, for ₹8200 from Nehru Place. I got a lil confused as i also came across a Powercolor 7770 but with 2 GB DDR5 for the same price! But something seemed fishy, so I stuck with the Sapphire one. What say?


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## flyingcow (Nov 18, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration + ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*



rijinpk1 said:


> also install a 64 bit windows 7. you will be amazed by its performance over xp.also it is more secure than xp



32 bit and 64 bit depends on proccy right?? e7400 supports 64bit?


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## rijinpk1 (Nov 18, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration   ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*



flyingcow said:


> 32 bit and 64 bit depends on proccy right?? e7400 supports 64bit?



not just cpu but on rams also. old cpus are 32 bit or lower(they process 32 bits at a time) and needs 32 bit or lower operating systems. maximum amount of ram a 32 bit os support is 2 ^32 bytes =4GB
 newer cpus are 64 bits and e7400 too( they process 64 bits at a time)
a 64 bit os can support maximum 2^64 bytes of ram. if you have more than 4gb ram, you need 64 bit os since remaining ram from 4gb can not be used by 32 bit os.

if 2gb or less ram is installed, i suggest to install 32 bit os  else go for 64 bit os.

if 2gb or less ram is installed, i suggest to install 32 bit os  else go for 64 bit os.


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## anirbandd (Nov 18, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration   ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*



iwannaberockstar said:


> Yeah man, the colour reproduction on the CRT is just amazing and I think that that's the reason that i held on to it for so long
> 
> The CPU might bottleneck the GPU...but I don't think by much. I mean 2.8 GHz, dual core.....I still think it has still got the juices left for a couple of years more...what do you guys think?
> 
> Also, I FINALLY got the Sapphire 7770 GHz Edition, 1GB DDR5, for ₹8200 from Nehru Place. I got a lil confused as i also came across a Powercolor 7770 but with 2 GB DDR5 for the same price! But something seemed fishy, so I stuck with the Sapphire one. What say?



theoritically, yeah.. but in actual games you will see less FPS because the CPU processes the frames slower than teh GPU processes them. happened to me in Hitman Absolution when i was on CRT. as soon as i was on 1600x900, the problem disappeared.



rijinpk1 said:


> not just cpu but on rams also. old cpus are 32 bit or lower(they process 32 bits at a time) and needs 32 bit or lower operating systems. maximum amount of ram a 32 bit os support is 2 ^32 bytes =4GB
> newer cpus are 64 bits and e7400 too( they process 64 bits at a time)
> a 64 bit os can support maximum 2^64 bytes of ram. if you have more than 4gb ram, you need 64 bit os since remaining ram from 4gb can not be used by 32 bit os.
> 
> ...



thats actually 3.5GB


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## rijinpk1 (Nov 19, 2013)

*Re: Oldish PC configuration   ancient CRT monitor(hiding face in shame) . Help needed for new graphi*



anirbandd said:


> thats actually 3.5GB



that is the practical case. actually some ram gets reserved. theoritically using 32 bit address bit, os should be able to address 4gb of max ram.


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## anirbandd (Nov 19, 2013)

*practically.*

Keyword


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## rijinpk1 (Nov 21, 2013)

anirbandd said:


> *practically.*
> 
> Keyword



edited


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## iwannaberockstar (Nov 22, 2013)

Thanks a lot guys for all your answers. I really appreciate all of your efforts.


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