Got a chance to buy a cheap computer...

So I recently got the chance to buy a computer for a really low price from my school. Here are the specs they sent us:

Del l Optiplex 980 SFF
Intel i5 650 3.2GHz
ATI Radeon HD 4550 512MB (DVI and Display port)
4GB RAM
Hard Drive with Windows 7 Home Premium
10/100 Ethernet port
DVD ROM (no writer)
8xUSB 2.0 ports
1xeSATA port
19” Widescreen Dell 1909wb monitor (DVI, VGA, USB ports)

My main concern is the graphics card... Since I got this computer dirt cheap, I've got some room to upgrade. What GPU would y'all recommend to be able to run Civ V smoothly on big maps/low difficulty/medium settings?

Thanks for the help!

You need a low profile card.

The number of low profile cards that don't totally suck for gaming is rather limited, most of those low performance cards won't be much better than your current card.

There are several cards in the $50-80 range that might be "okay" for your requirements, but usually too expensive in comparison to their performance, e.g. HD 5570/6570/6670, GT640


If you can afford a $100 card, either a HD 7750 GDDR5 or a GT650 offer a significantly better performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500290


If you think about even faster cards, those wouldn't be available in low-profile, and might be too much for the PSU anyway.

Thanks for the advice! Looking at the two cards you recommended, I noticed that their minimum PSU requirements are higher than what'll be in the computer (it looks like all the Dell Optiplex 980 SFFs had 235 w PSUs). But I also found this thread asking a similar question about upgrading the GPU on an SFF with concerns about the PSU who said he didn't have any problems.

In your experience, what is the effect of an underpowered PSU on a GPU? It apparently works, but what effect will this have on the hardware itself? Upgrading the PSU wouldn't be an issue from a financial standpoint, but I've also read that its a huge pain to find PSUs that will fit properly in the SFF. I'd really prefer to not buy a new case and transfer all of the guts from the Dell.

That may not work either, if the MB is not a standard one.

Perhaps play the game first and then go from there.

NotJoe said:

Thanks for the advice! Looking at the two cards you recommended, I noticed that their minimum PSU requirements are higher than what'll be in the computer (it looks like all the Dell Optiplex 980 SFFs had 235 w PSUs). But I also found this thread asking a similar question about upgrading the GPU on an SFF with concerns about the PSU who said he didn't have any problems.

In your experience, what is the effect of an underpowered PSU on a GPU? It apparently works, but what effect will this have on the hardware itself? Upgrading the PSU wouldn't be an issue from a financial standpoint, but I've also read that its a huge pain to find PSUs that will fit properly in the SFF. I'd really prefer to not buy a new case and transfer all of the guts from the Dell.

Click to expand...

Those recommendations from the video card vendors are usually way, way oversized. They have to take into account two things

-Depending on the CPU, the maximum base system consumption can be anywhere between 50 and 200W.

-There are a lot of cheap, crappy PSUs that cannot deliver their rated wattage.

and than they add a safety margin ....

That i5 in your system is on the low end regarding power consumption, and those big brand, SFF business systems generally have a fairly low power draw. It's next to impossible that it will even reach 100W under extreme CPU load.
Also, those systems have usually good PSUs that will actually deliver their rated power under sustained load.

Those $100 cards themselves will use around 50W under Civ5, slightly more if running test software specifically designed to stress them to the max.

You will not be able to load both CPU and GPU to the max in a real life situation, so your power draw will stay significantly below 150W in worst case situations.

The PSU is rated for 17A on the 12V rail, and will be able to deliver more than 200W to the system components.

It will work just fine, with some headroom, and overall give you a system very well suited for Civ5.


If the PSU is overtaxed, you might experiences crashes during gaming, or the system will simply shut off. But this is highly unlikely. Even more unlikely is that it would damage any hardware.

Decided to go with the HD 7750. I'll let you all know how it works out.

Thanks a ton for all the help!

The video card works perfectly! The system runs Civ V quite well. Thanks again to tokala for all of your help.