GPU Upgrade

[Cikomyr2]

So I am in the market to upgrade my good old GPU from nVidia GTX 950 to something more modern - with maybe more than 2GB of memory.

So one of the thing I know I needed to check was the power supply on my computer. I got that; 460w 850W. Now, should I worry about the GPU slot in my computer, or are all PCs GPU slots the same?

[factotum]

Regarding PSU: you need to double-check what power connectors it has as well as its actual wattage, because many top-end graphics cards require more power than the slot they're plugged into can supply and need a connection directly from the PSU--these are generally dedicated 6- or 8-pin connectors (your GTX 950 would have had a 6-pin one). As for the slot itself, PCI-Express has been the standard method of attaching graphics cards for the last 15 years or thereabouts, so as long as your machine is newer than that you ought to be OK.

[sihnfahl]

Can you provide us the model of the PSU, or at least tell us which power connectors it has?

As Factotum said, more powerful GPUs need more than the standard slot will provide, so you have dedicated lines specifically for the card.

We can help narrow down makes and models by eliminating those that require a power line your PSU does not provide.

[snowblizz]

If you really have a 850W powersupply connectors won't be an issue. Because then you likely have a reasonably new (no way did you buy a 850W PSU for a computer old enough to run a gtx950) PSU and the conenctors have bene standard since at least the 900 series. Further even. None of them draw power from the pci-e slot. The slot itselt will also not be an issue, it is and has been standard for 10 years or so. What you can have problems with is physical space. A new GPU takes a lot more space, I think at least 2 slots worth of space physically in the case and length and width can also be an issue depending on size of the case and where and how much other stuff you got in there. Yes cases are standard sized too, and yes logically they'd not make the cards too large, but...

For example the new nVidia 3000 series has a custom connector anyway and comes with an adapter already because no PSU on the market has the right connectors. For a "modular" PSU there will soon be a custom cabling made available if China doesn't already provide. If not modular you will in worst case need to ebay some kind of adaptor, but since it's only power it's easy. Copper wire is copper wire.

More importantly though, is the rest of the system up to spec? If you have a gtx950, is the rest of the computer of the same vintage? Becasue if yes, there is no point in buying a new gfx card because the CPU, ram and motherboard will drag down your system. About 1.5 years ago I was playing Fallout5 and was getting stuttering in intensive gameplay (flying planes). I thought I hit the limit on GPU, but I replaced the internals (cpu/mobo/ram) instead as a friend with a 1070Ti had exactly the same results from same game, and he had the same cpu I had. Swapping my 4th gen i5 for a 9th gen i5 suddenly boosted FPS in game. So yes, usually a gpu is the most effective boost, but only to a point.

Now the big issue you will find is you can't actually buy a new gfx card. They released a rtx3000 and rt6000 series respectively 1-2 months ago and supply does not exist. Anywhere but with scalpers it seems. You literally cannot buy a new gen gfx card (easily) atm and previous gen ones aren't discounted at all right now. I'm in the market to replace my gtx970 myself and it is killing me I can't get a new card anywhere except at ridiculous markups or buying absolute overkill borderline stupid cards meant for production work.

So if your system is actually all of the same vintage as your gtx950 look at replacing the entire system sometime in the spring. If I didn't already have a fairly new main system from Intel I'd now go AMD cpu with AMD gpu to take advatange of them being optimized to work together.

I find at this point there's no real difference* between nVidia and AMD, effectively, I'm getting a 3080 or 6800XT whichever card I can find in stock and isn't ugly as sin.

*the same class gpu are equaly compatible in framerates, the differences that do exist do not seem to have any impact for normal people, only for those doing in-depth techreviews for their youtube channels, and even they say the difference really is just "it's different, but not meaningful for you". Like e.g. RTX cards to raytracing better but onyl a few games, overall, even support it 2-3 years after nVidia tried to sell it as the new big thing

[factotum]

Further even. None of them draw power from the pci-e slot.

That's definitely not true? I had an nVidia 750Ti graphics card at one point, and one of the main reasons I had it was that it offered halfway decent performance (for the time, obviously) without needing any additional power connectors at all--it could draw everything it needed from the PCI-e slot. You can still get graphics cards that use little enough power to not require the dedicated PSU connectors.

[Cikomyr2]

Thank you everyone for your help. You confirmed the research I managed to do on my own. I have an Aurora R5, so I do have the 6 pin and 8 pin connector, and the dual slots.

I benchmarked my computer, and apparently I am above the 60th percentile for everything except the graphic card. 2nd lowest grade I had was memory, but I know my current memory card has empty slots, so if it proves problematic I will upgrade that way.

I'll pick the graphic card of my choice today. It will have to be "what's left in stock" because apparently everything is almost sold out.

[snowblizz]

That's definitely not true? I had an nVidia 750Ti graphics card at one point, and one of the main reasons I had it was that it offered halfway decent performance (for the time, obviously) without needing any additional power connectors at all--it could draw everything it needed from the PCI-e slot. You can still get graphics cards that use little enough power to not require the dedicated PSU connectors.

It's definitely true speaking of actual real new gfx cards relevnt to the discussion at hand. A 750Ti is 2 generations removed (and not ina good way) from what OP already has. I mean I could come dragging with VESA cards or AGP, but that seems equally beside point. Yes there is also somewhere some fringe card that only draws power from the pci-e slot even currently. None of those are in any way seriously a contender in this dicsussion.

No current card that in anyway is pertinent to the idea of upgrading a gtx950 is going to be using the pci-e for power, beyond supplemental use, or indeed in conjunction with the extra cable. I'm standing by this statement. I don't believe anything that's a meaningful upgrade would actually not need extra connectors.


I'm still curious about what the mains specs are. My 5 year old cpu bottlenecked my 5 years old gpu after all.

[Cikomyr2]

well, I shall receive a sexy GeForce GTX 1660 TI

'cause it was still available, and there was a small discount. It should do the trick.

[snowblizz]

well, I shall receive a sexy GeForce GTX 1660 TI

'cause it was still available, and there was a small discount. It should do the trick.

My local webstore had 3060Ti in stock they claimed. 34 items, but that was yesterday.

Hopefully the 1660 didn't cost too much. Prices on such old items are nowhere near as low as they should be IMO.

[Cikomyr2]

My local webstore had 3060Ti in stock they claimed. 34 items, but that was yesterday.

Hopefully the 1660 didn't cost too much. Prices on such old items are nowhere near as low as they should be IMO.

Fully out of stock.

Paid about 450 CAD for the card. Maybe overpriced, but eh. I'll survive.

[GrayDeath]

Given that its MSVP depending on the specific model was between 290 and 350 USD when it came out, yeah.
If you can still return it and get another Card, try. You should be able to get a 1660 Super which is very close for around 190 to 220 USD.
Or get a 2060 or 2070 supüer for around 400 depending on specific Models (or if you dont care about Raytracing and can find one, a Radeon 5700(XT).

But in the recent idiotic market, its a sellers Dream, so unless you want to gor for used cards and/or very lucky or can wait, youre ....ed.

I will for xample pray that My Vega 56 holds up for th next months, until the scarcity periood is over, and grudgungly wait to play Cyberpounk until then.

[Erloas]

Wow, prices really are that high again. When I bought my new computer about a year and a half ago the GPU was only $200 and it was a close competitor to the 1660, as I was looking at both. The card I bought it about 50% more than what I bought it for too it seems.

I assume this is all COVID related supply issues?


To go back a little bit, *every* single video card uses the PCI-E power, it is just that the vast majority of them also use additional power. The additional power plugs though are at least 10 years old, I'm sure it is a fair amount older than that too, I just don't have a good way of finding out when that was actually added. But for the most part the power requirements of GPU hasn't actually changed all that much over the last decade or so, they just get a lot more GPU computing power out of each watt they use.
I remember around 2005ish when SLI really starting gaining prominence there were a lot of people buying 800-1200W power supplies.

The main issue with an old PSU is that they are one of the most likely places for people to cheap out on a build, especially from OEMs, and ideally you don't want to be more than about 80% of their average power when you are at peak draw, and they loose effectiveness as they age. So using 400w of a 500w supply in year 1-2 is less likely to be an issue than 5-8 years down the line. Combined with the fact that if a PSU does fail, it tends to kill a lot of things with it in the process of failing. 850W would not be an issue at all though (assuming at least a good quality PSU)


As for GPU vs CPU bottleneck, it comes down to the game in almost all cases. But resolution makes a huge difference too, very few modern mid to high end video cards will have any issues running games at 1080p, it's when you start going to 1440p or 4k resolutions that GPUs really start to fall off and they are more likely to be the bottleneck rather than the CPU.

[snowblizz]

I assume this is all COVID related supply issues?

No, not really. COVID certainly impacts a lot but it goes beyond that.

A much more major factor is the excess demand, the new generation is such an uplift compared to previous generations, and it seems there is a lot of pent up demand that has ben waiting for this generation. Not to mention the GPU makers went out hard promoting their stuff (my youtube feeds flooded voer with new GPU videos all of a sudden from not really having watched anything too similar regularly eg). They probably oversold it considering the logistical and manufacturing issues arising from covid.

It doesn't help that nVidia sold 175M worth of new generation GPUs directly to miners. While in the grand scheme of things it's not massive but say eg that was probably enough to have covered the first few weeks of shortages or so. Not sure which tech guru on youtube made a video explaining the "perfect storm" of issues that combined.

COVID certainly hit many facets of this, imparing production, logistics, incresing demand (lockdowns) but there's a good argument all the makings of botched launch were there. COVID just cranked the dial way past 11.

[Erloas]

But demand for the newest generation and low supply of those doesn't explain why a card I purchased a year and a half ago is more expensive now and also hard to find. The 1660s and RX580s are way up in cost and they are 3 generations old now.
As for mining, I really haven't heard too much about that being an issue in the last 2 years or so and at least a cursory search hasn't shown any news indicating some large rush on cryptocurrency or mining.

[snowblizz]

But demand for the newest generation and low supply of those doesn't explain why a card I purchased a year and a half ago is more expensive now and also hard to find. The 1660s and RX580s are way up in cost and they are 3 generations old now.

It actually does. If there is no supply, people who have waited or must buy anew card msut buy waht exists. If you can't buy a newer cheaper card the store doesn't ahve to mark down the older generation cards. It's not like they are doing so out of favours to us. A 2080ti super for 1200 dollars isn't marked down for any other reason than that everyone could buy a 3080 instead. If you can't buy a 3080 then the older card retains value still.

As for mining, I really haven't heard too much about that being an issue in the last 2 years or so and at least a cursory search hasn't shown any news indicating some large rush on cryptocurrency or mining.

nVidia presented their quarterly financial report which include a post of 175M (iirc) dollars worth of direct sales of 30xxx chips to miners. It's specifically listed, which is why we know and are so mad.


I other news, today I went to the computer shop to get some memory they ahd waiting for me. Whiel there I get told both my Samsung Odyssey G7s creen adn the RTX 3070 card I order day before Xmas has arrived. I'm both flabbergasted and massively surprised. I placed the order for the 3070 mostly as a trial expecting to see it in maybe another month.

So this is now typed on my new 32" screen powered by a brand spanking new 3070 that doubles as a space heater. The hilarious part is my PSUY isn't really up to spec but am still waiting for that Black Friday special I didn't think I'd need for another several weeks at the earliest.