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Budget Graphics Card Roundup
Anonymous Coward writes "Not all of us are prepared to drop $500 for a killer graphics card. Generally, the sweet spot in price and performance is in the budget category of GPUs. Joel Durham Jr. over at ExtremeTech reviews nine current graphics cards, all of which are below $250, some below $150, to determine which cards are worth the time and money for the gamer on a budget. In the sub $150 category, the ATI Radeon 4770 performed the best for its price. Spend a little more and Joel recommends the GeForce 260."
As a long time PC gamer, I have come to the conclusion that there are only two reason to upgrade your video card. 1) A new fancy game you must play at high settings to enjoy needs more juice from your rig. 2) You find a good performance to price ratio card that fits your gaming needs. I tend to upgrade about once every year or year and a half. I am currently still running on the BFG OC 8800GT (for $200 in Dec 07). I play everything from the good old stand by counter-strike: source, left 4 dead, call of duty 4, far cry 2, ut3 and many more to the non graphically intense without so much as a hiccup. (I am always looking out for a new game that is worth my money and though I tend to stick to FPS I still like RPGs and MMORPGs and even the occasional RTS) Graphics != Good gameplay.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Here's the single page link: http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D240530,00.asp
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
"Radeon 4770 as the best for its price for cards under $150? It's discontinued and you can't buy it from Newegg"
/. 3 weeks ago.
New here? Radeon 4770 just came out last month. It was even covered on
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
What kind of conclusion is the Radeon 4770 as the best for its price for cards under $150? It's discontinued and you can't buy it from Newegg, Mwave, or ZipZoomFly. That seems to be a very poor suggestion to recommend a discontinued card that is probably only available used...
LOL, it's not discontinued. It just came out. You can't buy it from these retailers cause it's SOLD OUT. That's right, selling like hotcakes. But I gots mine . And these guys are calling $250 a *BUDGET* card? Are they INSANE?
Tom's hardware does a best graphics card for the money every month with a breakdown for various pricing tiers. It also has a hierarchy chart that groups cards by performance levels, which helps to compare different models other than the "best" for each category.
Here's the one for May. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-graphics,2296.html
$235 for the SLI plunge here.
I've got dual 9800 GTs with a Zotac SLI board for $55, each 9800 was $90. Free shipping with the Negg.
Radeon 3850
Radeon 2600 XT
Another Radeon 3850
Not to mention the fact that you avoid SLI issues. Everytime a game comes out and I view the forums, people with SLI setups inevitably pop up with problems more often than you'd think they ought to otherwise..
If you have a 450w power supply you can run pretty much any mid range and lower card. The HD 4770 uses 80w at max (5w more than the pci-e slot provides, meaning you still have to hook it up to a power supply) which is probably more than the x1650, but lower than most other cards in the same performance range.
Be carefull with the 3 and 4k series, they were designed for pci-e only (not shure, but think the 2k series is the same) and they only do agp with a bridge chip of some sort and there have been issues, and ati doesn't support those configurations (you're pretty much stuck with the vendors custom version of the radeon drivers).
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
I bought an ATI card, and having no problems with it (4870). I used to be NVidia only and lived in fear of the ATI messes. AT the moment, I'm quite happy with it.
Still, buy what you're happy with; just throwing in a point of view of a non-fanboy who's seen both sides of it and is quite content with both.
The Radeon 4670 is a good budget card that can run nearly everything but the highest end (is Crysis at medium sufficient?), can run on a 300w power supply without any extra attachments, and costs $70 or less.
Starcraft is a Blizzard game, their requirements are stupid low
I'd recommend a Radeon HD3850 - they're cheap at the moment (around $70), support directx 10.1, and only use 13.5W at idle and 63.1W under load (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd3870-hd3850_13.html#sect0). Your current card, (I'm assuming you have the XT, not the Pro), consumes 23W at idle and 55.2W under load (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-x1650xt_4.html#sect0).
If $70 is too much money, or you'd like less power consumption, the Radeon 4650 might be better for you. It goes for around $60 and uses only 30W under load (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/ati-radeon-hd4650_4.html#sect0). It's not quite as powerful as the 3850 though.
I have a 3850 and have been able to play most games (like Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2) at the "high" performance level (I don't play many high-end shooters like Crysis, however, so YMMV)
I agree that buying last year's games are a good idea - by that time the price has usually dropped $10 - $20, most of the bugs have been patched, and often with games like Morrowind and Oblivion, a great deal of mods have sprung up.
Best of luck with whatever video card you decide on.
I poked around on Newegg a bit, and found the SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 3850. It's $100 plus shipping, but it has dual-link DVI and it's almost undoubtedly more powerful than your existing card (which is nice, even if you don't need it). The VisionTek Radeon HD 2400PRO would probably work too, if you'd rather not spend $100, but there seem to be a lot of complaints about driver compatibility.
Now I want one of the HD 3850's.
--- Mr. DOS