It skips frames and the fps is doing the limbo but now I'll save on electricity.

In other words I screwed up by not doing adequate research, I just went with a recommendation on a bottleneck calculator website.

It looked good at first glance: twice the video ram, more recent model, higher model number, the card I removed is not sold anymore.

I was not expecting a fantastic result since it cost me $100 new but I don't think my old one cost much more and I got it several years ago so I thought inflation and better tech at a lower price meant I was getting a better card for cheap.

I just would have had to enter old card vs new card in google and I would have saved myself $100. I'm not going to send it back though, I've always been fearful of trying to overclock my video card but with this one I do not really care so I might do some tests to see what kind of improvement OC can do, or I'll simply put my old card back in and keep this one as a spare just in case my old card goes kaput.

Remember kids: do your homework before trying to upgrade.

And so people who know better can laugh at me:
old card: GTX 650 1GB DDR 5
new card GT 710 2GB DDR 3

MY CPU is a Intel CORE 2 Quad CPU Q8300 2.5 GHz
I need a whole new computer but I thought $100 was a low price to get something a little better until then.

GT 710 for 100$ is a massive ripoff and budget gamers today can get significantly faster cards for not much more but ofc you would require so many new parts for it to perform optimal so it's easier to get a new PC.

I agree though if you are unsure always do research instead of learning the hard way.

Ouch. Sorry to hear that but lesson for future and lesson for bigger more important stuff like cars, home loans, wives.

Yeah... Research is your friend, For NVidia cards, the first number is the generation, the second digit is the class. So a 480 will out class a 720 in almost every conceivable way. Sorry you got bit, but luckily you didn't lose a LOT of money.

Uff, from DDR5 to DDR3 is a lot of downgrade in performance, even if the ram number doubled.

https://www.goldfries.com/computing/gddr3-vs-gddr5-graphic-card-comparison-see-the-difference-with-the-amd-radeon-hd-7750/

Yeah, that's quite a hit. If it's any consolation, I learnt the same lesson the hard way too about ten years ago.

As for new computers for reasonable money, I would consider a second-hand or refurbished workstation (such as a Dell Precision MT). Since businesses sometimes buy workstations in bulk, spec them generously and replace them even when they're nowhere near the end of their service life, you might be able to find a really good one for a fraction of the price of a new desktop. I almost got one, but they're less common in Finland and I didn't want to risk incurring customs charges. Could've saved a bundle though.

Just make sure you do they research or have someone do it for you. GPU designations can be odd, for instance (ever heard of an NVidia Quadro?), and they're obviously marketed towards CAD users and such rather than gamers, which still isn't saying that they are shite for your needs.

Hope you bought the whole pc for 100$, for only the GPU is quite expensive. I have one of those OEM cards and they qualify as a gt705 in recent drivers.
There are several versions of the gt710 but mostly can be separated in two types, the 48 cores and the 192 cores version. As you can imagine the performance is completelly different but both are not good, they can be quite less powerfull than modern integrated GPU's.

If you can, just send if back, to be honest I wouldn´t pay more 10$ for the card.

For the better power saving card you should go with Nvidia gt1030, it probably cost around 100$ new on your country, it will use little power, when not gaming is much more efficient than the gtx 650 and more powerfull on 3D. It has hardware decoding features wich help your CPU as well.
Your system might consume crazy amounts of power, I have a Phenom 2 x4 955 system, wich is somewhat comparable to your core2 quad in efficiency, and oveclocked it easilly pulls 250W from the wall on CPU load alone, 70W+ when idle.

A prebuilt system with a intel i3 cpu, like a fujitsu-siemens e400 85+, with intel i3-2120 (or better yet i3-3***)are very cheap (I´ve bought them for less than 50 euros), much faster than your old core2quad in most apps, much more "snappier" in general use and come with very high efficient power supplies. It can idle around 25W and cpu load 70-80W.
Hp elite 6300 can come with 90% efficient power supplies, with i5-3470 with are very good even today.


Long rant over...

Ah, reminds me of... well, me, given a choice between a 940MX and a smaller laptop or a 1050 and a larger laptop. "Well, it can't be that different, can it?" Yes. Yes it can.

I really would have just waited until you got a new PC. You can get a 1050 for $150 and it would blow that away by miles.

can u return the card?
where did u buy it from

710? Ouch. That... barely puts something on screen. Think it's the 20s that are the OEM standard when the point is just to be able to say the system has a dedicated video card. And as it was already pointed out, for nVidia the last 2 digits show place in generation, while what's before that shows generation, higher being better for all, so you changed one generation's midrange with the next one's very bottom...

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html is a decent guide for video cards. As you can see, the 650 is ranked as about equal with the DDR5 740. The DDR3 740 is a fair bit lower, 730 even lower, and they don't even cover 720, much less 710.

And $100 for it is a heck of a lot. Seems like the regular price is about $50. And definitely not worth it either way.

Shitty naming schemes are to blame. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1477

Put back my GTX 650, even Civ V lagged when moving units on the 710 and that's with moving animation turned off.

It seems like I miss-remembered the pice, it was $70 Canadian, $80 with taxes. I got it at Amazon

If ever in doubt, I tend to use this site: http://www.hwcompare.com/

It will give you an idea of how your card stacks up. The 710 is essentially the same power as an integrated card. I know the 720 is, as I bought one for $65 for my pc when the integrated card went out.

I would definitely reinstall the old card, as it's a much better card.