I changed my video card... GT 710 inside... (long story)

[LePresident]

Hi everybody !

Yesterday, I played ET and after that, I played Age of Empires III.
I was playing for about 3 hours when a smell appeared, a burning smell
I quitted the game, the GeForce 8500 GT was at 74 °C.
I forced the fan to full speed, and 30 seconds later, the temp of the GPU was 64 °C, and no more burning smell.
I definitively don't want to play with a video card that could fire, literaly !
So today, I bought a new video card : exit 8500 GT, welcome GT 710.

But the install was a pain in the ass...
I tried to boot on HDMI, but... no boot, black screen, nothing, the HDD doesn't start, the BIOS doesn't even display anything !
OK, let's try the good old VGA style... but... wait... VGA ?
It's not supposed to have VGA : on the box, it's written D-Sub, not VGA ! Oh, anyway...
Ah, VGA was the good option, now I can boot
And I can boot in a... 800x600 resolution
So now, we need to change the resolution, and... 1280x1024 is the max ???

OK, seems pretty clear it's time to install a driver, right ?
Oh crap ! The box says 300 Mb available on the HDD...
But the install software says something about 3.7 Gb !!!

Good, now the install process is launched, and...
Oh my god ! it tooks 20 minutes to install it ! and the MSI install software is so slow, so heavy, even Windows is lagging
And now I need to reboot !
But the driver is installed, right ? or almost... So let's try another HDMI-style boot.

Naaah, it works : HDMI boot, full HD resolution, everything is fine...
But of course, an update is available and needed...
Ok, so download and install... 32 minutes ! Come on !
And after that, another reboot is needed ! COME ON !!!

Woah, that was really painful, but finally, it works !
It took almost one hour to install the driver and update it.
Now it's time to test it...
I tried the UserBenchmark software, the GT 710 is something like 4 times faster than the 8500 GT

And of course, I tried with ET...
Too bad I didn't checked the FPS with the old card...
But here is what I've got now :

MSI nVidia GeForce GT 710
RAM 2 Gb DDR3
--------------------------------
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory
--------------------------------
Minimum 60 FPS
Maximum 125 FPS
Average 100 FPS

A 100 FPS AVERAGE ???
NOW WE'RE TALKING !!!
I think I will re-install the 8500 one of these days, just to check the FPS with ET...

Well, this GT 710 is a 42 € video card, and even if it was a hard-time struggle-install, it was worth to change !
It's a new world, really ! It provide a smooth, fluid gaming experience, just perfect.

OK Folks, that's it for today, daytime story over

[Mystik]

Then, I tried to overclock the GPU, nVidia 8500 GT.
I downloaded MSI AfterBurner, a GPU overclock software.
Really easy tu use, and works perfectly.
After several attemps, I managed to overclock the 8500 GT, and found the limits for this GPU :

• GPU Core clock : 475 MHz before, 620 MHz after.
  
• GPU Memory speed : 475 MHz before, 575 MHz after.
  

I made a few bench tests after that, and it seems that the GPU gained about 25 % power/speed.

Hi everybody !

Yesterday, I played ET and after that, I played Age of Empires III.
I was playing for about 3 hours when a smell appeared, a burning smell
I quitted the game, the GeForce 8500 GT was at 74 °C.
I forced the fan to full speed, and 30 seconds later, the temp of the GPU was 64 °C, and no more burning smell.
I definitively don't want to play with a video card that could fire, literaly !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAYyPELvyqI

All kidding aside though, I'm glad your new GPU works well for you!

[LePresident]

Of course, but no regrets

[LePresident]

Hello Darky.

Yes, indeed, it's a low profile video card, but be aware it's not the best on the market.
It seems designed for old machines, not really for the new ones.
For my old 2007 PC, it's quite enough, no need for a GTX 1060 or a 1080 for this antique PC.

But I think your R7 is way more powerful than this GT.