Looking for trashy GPU but less trashy than mine

[Mateusz_Zboj]

So I found this radeon r7 240 baby (slightly better than GTS450) that runs below the the 76W mark, so I could plug it in on my 250W buuut nooo its PCI-E 3.0. My heart was just broken.
Will it harm me significantly if I run it on 2.0 slot? Naturally both are x16, so it should fit.
Is there any site where I could say only display cards meeting my criteria? Say PCI v2.0x16 cards under 76W, with higher benchmark score than my card.
Though I hear you said >75W cards are crap, but this r7 might prove you wrong (or is it just because its v3.0)
Well yeah, and I am aware of sad fact that benchmark score often doesn't do its justice.

[MagicManICT]

In some cases, a newer standard will run in an older socket*. In others it won't. I'll see if I can dig up some info for you, but won't make promises.

*In the old AGP standard, some of the 8x cards would run in a 2/4x slot, but not all. It significantly decreased the performance of the card if the user did so.

edit: actually found this right away: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id- ... -260x.html

[Mateusz_Zboj]

Hey thanks for info, but there is another thing, I've found out my card is designated G41T-AM, and all specs don't show which version of PCIE slot does it have.
I fear ACER might use similar logic and slam that GeForce 405 on, that even though it has a 2.0 plug it actually would run fine on 1.0.

[Atamzsiktrop]

It doesn't matter which version of PCI-E it is, it should run fine. Perfomance would also be highly unchanged.

[Mateusz_Zboj]

Contained intel g41 chipset services PCI-e v1.1
Raw bit rate on data pins of 2.5 Gb/s resulting in a real bandwidth per pair of 250 MB/s

I read on GPU boss that this card could theatricality push freaking gigabytes of data through it, but uhhhh it relates to memory bandwidth, so its confusing. Does it use that speed for inner calculations or what? I know you just basically said its fine, but I just wanna inquire .

[Atamzsiktrop]

It uses memory bandwidth for a lot of processes but perfomance difference should be minimal - probably like 1-8 fps in games (depends on the card), maybe like 10 fps difference in worst cases (top new modern cards with top bandwidth and older PCI - since bottleneck is also bigger) or higher with double cards. Check it on youtube, maybe with other cards. You shouldn't really worry about that. Upgrading your motherboard just for the PCI-E 3.0 slot would also be a waste.

[Mateusz_Zboj]

Ok, now the real question is whether r7 will make any difference over insert_mysterious_golden_mean_GPU, because CPU will surely bottleneck there.
I know I am kind of making circles here, but I don't wanna overpay D: .

[Atamzsiktrop]

It won't be a huge jump if you want good perfomance in newest games but it should be a significant one over your current GPU. R7 240 is apparently much more powerful. CPU shouldn't be that big of a bottleneck in this case.

R7's are also DX12 compatible so in future (like, 1 year?) you should hopefully see another perfomance jump from that.

[Mateusz_Zboj]

Hey, so I found the only other sensible cards:
Radeon HD 6570| 759 PM| 135 PLN| 60W
GeForce GT 620| 433 PM| 85 PLN| 50W
GeForce GT 610| 358 PM| 80 PLN| 30 W

compared to

Radeon R7 240| 1584 PM| 220 PLN| 30W

http://powersupplycalculator.net/ gave me an even 200W score with Radeon HD 6570, so i hear that's borderline dangerous because 20% of advertised power on PSU does not exist.
Prices in my local currency, navigate via % savings because poors.
PM goes for passmark benchmark.
Is there any point of buying any of these 3?

That should be my last post here, lol. Thanks a million in advance.

[Glorthan]

Pretty sure the gts450 is still quite a bit faster than the R7240.

The other cards you mentioned are not worth investigating, they're very slow.