Acquired not-so-powerful system with PCI-E 2.0 slot, what are my options?

[PatrickV2]

Hi there,

I recently acquired a second-hand system which is based on an ASUS P5LD2-VM mainboard. This is a socket 775 mainboard, with however currently a rather weak CPU installed: a Celeron D 336. (2.8GHz single core Celeron, which does have EM64T). Memory is ok: 2GB of DDR2.

The PCI-E 2.0 slot is currently empty; the board has on-board GMA950 video.

If I want to equip this system with a CUDA capable GPU,would that:

a) be a useful extension, due to the rather weak CPU?

and, if the answer to a) is yes,

b) what GPU would be a useful option? The system is (for me) not worth it to put something like a GTX480/580 in, but where do the CUDA capable budget cards become 'interesting' due to the amount of CUDA Cores?

For now, this is just out of interest, depending on the outcome of this thread I might or might not acquire a gfx card to put in it.

Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

Regards,

Patrick.

[sunu]

If you make it a dedicated gpu cruncher why not put a "big" graphics card in there? Leave the cpu free with its only purpose to feed the gpu and I don't think you'll see so much reduction in the theoretical output of a "big" graphics card.

[Jason G]

Just be aware that with newer more powerful cards, particularly factory OC'd 560tis & such, limitations of the feeding processor & remainder of the system have come under suspicion in several different situations. I'd suggest to be particularly careful with PSU, memory performance, as well as start with a smaller card & work up, so if it goes south at some point there is less investment lost.

Jason

[perryjay]

You don't mention what you have in there for a power supply. Make sure it is big enough to handle a hefty GPU.

[PatrickV2]

As I said, I don't think the system is 'worth'  putting a hefty graphics card in.

Also, the PSU currently is not much; I think it's a 300 or 350W AOpen-thingie as supplied with the AOpen case it was built-in; in my experience these case are also totally inadequate for cooling something like an 8800GTX.

The system cost me much less than a 'hefty' graphics card; if that were an option, I would actually put my current 8800GTX in there (but that'd need a new PSU), and then put something like a GTX580 in the system currently holding the 8800GTX (a Q6600).

So, where do the budget NVidia cards (GTS....) start performing somewhat interestingly?

Or is there somewhere a comparison of GFlops/$ for several low-budget cards capable of GPU-processing?

Regards,

Patrick.

[Jason G]

I'd go with one of the small cards like GT 440 or GT 430.  Neither require an auxillary power connector, so fit within the power spec of the PCie bus.  Looking at the specs they are both very similar, though the 440 has better clock rates.   With only 96 Cuda cores they certainly wouldn't be mega crunchers, but better than the 520, which is lower power & has only 48 cores.  Another option is the slightly more powerful GT 545 DDR3, but that may be pushing the power envelope, and perhaps not a big improvement on those two (maybe, maybe not).

[PatrickV2]

I'd go with one of the small cards like GT 440 or GT 430.  Neither require an auxillary power connector, so fit within the power spec of the PCie bus.  Looking at the specs they are both very similar, though the 440 has better clock rates.   With only 96 Cuda cores they certainly wouldn't be mega crunchers, but better than the 520, which is lower power & has only 48 cores.  Another option is the slightly more powerful GT 545 DDR3, but that may be pushing the power envelope, and perhaps not a big improvement on those two (maybe, maybe not).

OK, that sounds very practical/useful. FYI, the costs of aquiring a 1GB GT440 would be around 2/3rd of the price the system cost me.

I'll let this sink in a bit.

Regards,

Patrick.