Solved Need advice on graphics card

archfoto · Oct 10, 2025

bobkn said:
What does CPU-Z say about the RAM frequency?

(It reports the clock frequency, which is half the data transfer rate for all flavors of DDR.)

Hi Bobkn -

Here's a screenshot!

hdmi · Oct 10, 2025

Why has this suddenly devolved into a discussion about RAM and video editing? The OP has 32GB RAM, which is twice the recommended RAM for playing WoW.

archfoto · Oct 10, 2025

hdmi said:
Why has this suddenly devolved into a discussion about RAM and video editing? The OP has 32GB RAM, which is twice the recommended RAM for playing WoW.

Yeah, you're right. But, don't we all gain knowledge from our interactions? Isn't that the purpose of discussion and discourse?

hdmi · Oct 10, 2025

archfoto said:
Yeah, you're right. But, don't we all gain knowledge from our interactions? Isn't that the purpose of discussion and discourse?

Was it really necessary to go that far off topic, though?

bobkn · Oct 10, 2025

archfoto said:
Hi Bobkn -

Here's a screenshot!

View attachment 148470

The RAM is running at 3600MHz (2X approx. 1800) transfer rate.

This from Dell:

XPS 8950 Setup and Specifications | Dell US

Dell lists 4000MHz for 4 X 16MB. Maybe you could choose that in the 8950's BIOS settings.

archfoto · Oct 10, 2025

bobkn said:
The RAM is running at 3600MHz (2X approx. 1800) transfer rate.

This from Dell:

XPS 8950 Setup and Specifications | Dell US

Dell lists 4000MHz for 4 X 16MB. Maybe you could choose that in the 8950's BIOS settings.

Thanks, bobkn -
We did get bit far off the topic, which was helping a fellow member, bamagull, decide on a video card. As a former career auto mechanic with 30 years of experience, I had a mantra: If it works, don't fix it. My personal computer is happy and doing what I need it to do, at present. So, I will not mess with it right now, as I don't want to interrupt my work-flow. Thanks for your suggestion, though.

bobkn · Oct 10, 2025

archfoto said:
Thanks, bobkn -
We did get bit far off the topic, which was helping a fellow member, bamagull, decide on a video card. As a former career auto mechanic with 30 years of experience, I had a mantra: If it works, don't fix it. My personal computer is happy and doing what I need it to do, at present. So, I will not mess with it right now, as I don't want to interrupt my work-flow. Thanks for your suggestion, though.

Sensible. You probably wouldn't notice much improvement, outside of synthetic benchmarks.

You may have noticed that "bamagull" has done a single post to start the thread, and hasn't returned to it.

SlicEnDicE · Oct 11, 2025

They've been lurking, but haven't said anything because we're doing all the talking, which has gone completely out of topic.

@bamagull please let us know if configuring the graphics settings helped solve your game issue, or if you're still into buying a new GPU.

Thank you and sorry on behalf of everyone for spamming completely out of topic stuff and irrelevant opinions.

spapakons · Oct 11, 2025

My guess is he tried some settings, saw some improvement but he is going to buy a new card anyway. He doesn't really need it but want it and was looking for an excuse.

SlicEnDicE · Oct 11, 2025

We don't know that...but having an RTX card is not a bad thing. But for those features to be useful rather than annoying (almost making it) I'd go for at least a 5060Ti or 5070. The lower tiers are a bit weak, though they also add some value to raytracing features. 5090 is overkill though for most users and its price is not really justifiable unless you use the card for making more money (AI, CG etc...)

hdmi · Oct 11, 2025

SlicEnDicE said:
or 5070

AFAIK that can't be had for $500 just yet unless you buy used, and besides, the similarly priced Radeon RX 9070 appears to be a better GPU than the RTX 5070. The 16GB GDDR7 version of 5060Ti is still the sweet spot for heavy gaming at 1080p (1920×1080) resolution.

However like I said, even if WoW is capped at 60 FPS through settings and using 1920×1080 resolution, his CPU can easily become a bit of a limiting factor that can be exacerbated in crowded areas of the game. (Even, if all the various settings are optimized for a well-balanced tradeoff between the FPS stability factor and all the other graphics quality related variables.)

SlicEnDicE · Oct 11, 2025

hdmi said:
AFAIK that can't be had for $500 just yet unless you buy used

This would be correct, but it gets quite close.

I was not talking about price at all, just the features RTX brings to the table. RTX 5050 is almost as good as not having RTX at all for instance. It can enhance a bit of graphics but it is more trouble than worth the effort in many games. 5060 improves on this a bit, but a 16GB card helps a lot vs 8GB. Anything after that is very usable in most modern titles as long as there is enough VRAM. 8GB is not enough, or too close to the limit, when RTX is ON.

hdmi · Oct 11, 2025

SlicEnDicE said:
This would be correct, but it gets quite close.

I was not talking about price at all, just the features RTX brings to the table. RTX 5050 is almost as good as not having RTX at all for instance. It can enhance a bit of graphics but it is more trouble than worth the effort in many games. 5060 improves on this a bit, but a 16GB card helps a lot vs 8GB. Anything after that is very usable in most modern titles as long as there is enough VRAM. 8GB is not enough, or too close to the limit, when RTX is ON.

But I am assuming that he also needs to stay on budget to make the next logical step in his future upgrade path possible soon. To replace his motherboard and CPU, that is. I guess that he could probably just keep his 32GB RAM. I certainly wouldn't want to wait too long with the motherboard+CPU upgrade. I would probably wait until Black Friday week or Cyber Monday. And/or use my pickpocketing skill to get the best deal that I can find...

spapakons · Oct 11, 2025

SlicEnDicE said:
This would be correct, but it gets quite close.

I was not talking about price at all, just the features RTX brings to the table. RTX 5050 is almost as good as not having RTX at all for instance. It can enhance a bit of graphics but it is more trouble than worth the effort in many games. 5060 improves on this a bit, but a 16GB card helps a lot vs 8GB. Anything after that is very usable in most modern titles as long as there is enough VRAM. 8GB is not enough, or too close to the limit, when RTX is ON.

My point exactly. Why would he needs to enable RTX or any other complex effects? Disable some of the complex effects or at least set them to medium or low and boom! His 1660 suddenly can give more than 60fps, unless there is a software limit of course.

KevTech · Oct 11, 2025

Makes sense to move to a newer card anyway to avoid GPU GOP issues when the 2011 cert is revoked next year.

spapakons · Oct 11, 2025

KevTech said:
Makes sense to move to a newer card anyway to avoid GPU GOP issues when the 2011 cert is revoked next year.

What do you mean? Anyone having an old card must replace it otherwise it won't boot in UEFI mode? That's ridiculous. Probably the manufacturer will issue a new BIOS to make the card compliant with the new certificate 2023.

PS: What about older graphics card without UEFI BIOS? Won't they boot in UEFI mode at all? Thankfully I have an unsupported Legacy BIOS installation so I won't be affected by the new certificate and other BS.

hdmi · Oct 11, 2025

spapakons said:
Why would he needs to enable RTX or any other complex effects? Disable some of the complex effects or at least set them to medium or low and boom! His 1660 suddenly can give more than 60fps, unless there is a software limit of course.

Read the news. lol The War Within runs like dogsh!t. There is no logical relationship between many of the settings and the FPS you get. The FPS also very heavily depends on where you are in the game. Results tend to vary so wildly between different areas in the game that you need to have a degree in gnomish engineering to be able to figure this out. Just to give only some idea of what this is:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1f02tml/struggling_with_performance_in_the_war_within

KevTech · Oct 11, 2025

spapakons said:
What do you mean?

https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/1n1jroi/psa_secure_boot_2026_june_cert_expiry_can_block

spapakons · Oct 11, 2025

That's why after installing new certificate 2023 in UEFI firmware you must avoid revoking the old certificate 2011. If this is done automatically, then those booting Windows 11 with Secure Boot enabled are screwed. Even if the GPU manufacturers issue a new firmware, who is going to flash it? Most users have no idea what to do, unless this is done automatically from Windows Update. Probably Microsoft or the motherboard manufacturers should find a way to automatically add our existing GPU to the trusted list without requiring to upgrade its firmware, otherwise they are going to lose a lot of users.

KevTech · Oct 11, 2025

Look at this post as there are already some tools to update.

Did you manually update your Secure Boot Keys ?

And this may create a new industry, someone that modifies existing video BIOS files with the CA 2023 either providing them for free or charging everyone for it.

www.elevenforum.com

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