Budget friendly Graphics Card?

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1

My GTS250 broke down last week (couriered my CPU, and was in shambles when it reached me) and my warranty is over. Darn, I had spent quite a bit on that card, and it was a really good one. And it so happens that my Gigabyte motherboard doesn’t have even an ounce of VRAM on it, so I pretty much can’t use my PC for doing anything than MSPaint or Notepad at the moment.

Well, shit happens and we all have to move on, so I’ve started to hunt for a low range card. I have a really tight budget, roughly equivalent to $110 (online conversion of Indian Rupees 5000)

I found only a small selection from the shops I visited that fits within my budget. These include:

Zotac Nvidia 9500GT ($82)
Galaxy Nvidia 9400GT ($75)
Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 4650 ($88)
Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 4670 ($110)
Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 5450 ($85)
Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 5570 ($130)

All of them come with 1GB VRAM. However, I’ve read that the 9400GT is absolutely worthless even for mediocre gaming. The 9500GT is reasonably priced, but I heard that it generates alot of heat and uses much power. I’ve used 9500GT which came with laptops, and it was not so great in terms of perfomance too. Somehow, none of the shops had 9600GT in stock.

The ATi cards are suprisingly cheaper. I’ve personally used HD 4650 on my friend’s desktop, and it was pretty good; great bang for the buck. I read that the 5450 is a card more suited for HTPCs than for gaming, so I think I’m ruling it out of the list.

The 5570 reviews are pretty attractive, and it seems like a decent card, but its much more expensive, coming upto $120 USD, and I just can’t stretch my budget that much. (1USD=45INR)

Right now, I’m pointing my finger at the 4670HD ($110). What do you people recommend? As for my usage, I do alot of digital drawing and painting using my Wacom Intuos, then Blendering, and ofcourse, gaming. I do know that these cards cannot be used for high end gaming, but I’m fine with that, I won’t always be on it.

I also lost 2GB of my 4GB DDR2 RAM too, but that’s not a big issue. I atleast have the other 2GB. My processor is an AMD Phenom X2, clocked at 3.1ghz. I immediately need a card, within the next 2-3 days or so, so any kind of help deciding is appreciated. Thanks a bunch!

Cheers.

2

I can’t actually find any specific information about the 4670 or 4650 on the AMD website but to put your mind to rest I believe either will ok as a temporary solution to your problem.

The only thing you need to research is how compatible these cards are with blender (If that’s a major part of you pc usage) because older ati cards have poorer drivers so see if you can finda some forum posts stating what people’s past experiences are.

Sorry for not being able to contribute exact answers.

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http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gts-450-radeon-hd-4850-gpu,2732-3.html toms hardware recomendations. ati releases new drivers everymonth, use catalyst and the auto update and it’ll get you the best driver for your card.

if you can wait a month ati is going to be releasing the 6000 series lines late october and the 5570 should drop into your price range.

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@AnTs101
Thanks, but I’m aware of the driver issues. I’ve used Blender on 4650HD and it worked as well as it did on my GTS250. So, I guess its not that bad.

@rdo3
I’m at another place for a 4 month internship, and at the moment, its not possible to wait for very long :frowning: I need to have a card soon as its affecting my work here.

What do you say about the 5670HD? The shopkeeper just told me its available. A tad costlier, but is it worth it?

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Try this. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

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i would go with the 4800 over the 56XX series. the 57XX series are better but the 4800 will beat the 5600 for less money, you have to remember its the gen older which is why i recomended waiting. the 48’s will beat the 56 but also consume more power. check yout power supply.its low for the 48 series, you need a 450 watt psu. the 56 series only requires a 400 watt psu, look for used in your area. if they have something like craigs list, and considering india is the new china they should, you should be able to pick up one cheap.

in short if you have a 450 psu go with the 4800, else look for a better deal. the 56 should be cheaper than the 48 but because it can run on a lower power supply and thus go into more pcs skews the supply demand. psu = power supply unit. 5600<4800<5700. this chart shows which is best http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/3DMark06-v1.1.0,2392.html not by price but by performance. get the best your budget and power supply can afford.

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@rdo3
Thank you, that was very informative. I currently have an Antec 650watt PSU. So is it fine picking up an older gen card? Will I be behind the lot by any significant reasons? I’m looking more for the performance, so if 4800 beats the 5670, then I might look for it.

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I got an XFX 9800GT for $80 on Ebay a couple of years ago. I just checked and it looks like they consistently go for that price nowadays. It’s only 512mb of ram, but that’ always been enough for me.

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I just spotted an ATi Radeon 5770HD 1GB at a shop, they were having this exhibition; I talked to my dad about it and it seems like he’s letting me buy it. What do you say about the 5770?

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You get a new 9800GTX+ with 1GB vRAM for ~80 Euro.
The 9800GTX+ is a tad better than the 9800GT.

The 9800GTX+ is exactly the same card as the GTS250, which the OP originally had :smiley:

9800GT has a G92b GPU in 55nm @600/1500/1800
9800GTX+ has a G92b GPU in 55nm @738/1836/220
GTS250 has a G92b GPU in 55nm @738/1836/220

And the GT230 and GTS150 and GTX285M all got a G92GPU in 55nm with different clocks.
They all come from 512mb-2048mb VRAM and are the same card with different names and clocks.

rebranding ftw!
lol

11

go with the 5770 if you can

12

The 5770 is great card, especially for the price.

13

What price?
He never stated any… lol.

14

arexma,

that is exactly why I do not like NVIDIA that much.
They sell old stuff updated a bit as new hardware.
Not only a few tech news channels flamed them for that.

I am pretty sure that CUDA is a good system but it is sad
that it became the defacto since NVIDIA is not that great
of a hardware platform in contrast to AMD/ATI.

It is too bad that not from the beginnding they did develop
a standard which runs on both card types the same way,
like intel and amd.

15

Radeon, yes get it. Much better than nvidia. Get whichever one is the highest numbered as long as it’s in your budget, I run a single 49XX on my desktop and it runs everything perfectly, so it’ll much definitely run for you.

16

Agentmilo

where in India are you from?

Is there a big price difference between the prices there and here?

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I think the best one is 5770, it has good cost-performance ratio.

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I’d go 5770. I had a 4870 1gb, which was awesome, and recently replaced it with a Firepro v4800. (I use blender and 3DS Max, so the firepro weighs in there soon with new driver plugin they’re releasing in the next week or two.)

19

dschnell

does the 3d card impact blenders opengl performance with high density meshes a lot
or not so much?

I am asking because I noticed that blender is terrible slow once the mesh gets denser
while CAD tools dont really have an issue with it at all.

So a I am considering to get a better card in case it really improves openGL rendering
significantly.

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Yeah, the GTS250 was pretty much awesome for my needs. The price converted online from www.xe.com - Rs9400 = $ 209 Thats the average cost of this card in most shops here anyway.

I’m originally from Kerala, but at the moment I’m at Bangalore, came for an internship. Anyway, there seems to be a price difference. Conversion tells me 9800GT costs roughly $137 and you guys are talking $80 O_o

I hadn’t touched my computer since my card died. However, yesterday, I got bored and simply removed my GTS from the motherboard and switched it on. The display was all low res @ 800x600, but after a few minutes Win7 started showing some drivers being installed. And after a restart, Win7 showed that I had an onboard ATi Radeon HD3200 @ 896mb O_o I was surprised, all the while I thought my motherboard didnt have onboard vRAM. It worked really well, I was able to do everything else but play games.

But after a few minutes, I plugged in my card back and tried to switch on, I was able to use the computer for about 15mins or so until BSOD (and each time the BSOD time limit became tighter). This gets me to wonder, is this a problem with my gfx card slot on the motherboard, or my card itself?