fairm010 Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 Hi! The time has come where my graphics card it getting me down on my home PC. I currently have an nVidia GEForce 210 with 512 MB RAM and it runs well but I want something a bit more powerful. I only run Minecraft and the like so don't need anything too great! Can anyone recommend me a decent card that is PCI-E and around the £60 - £80 mark? Matt
LeMarchand Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 I was hoping for some replies as I have much the same budget and would like to be able to play Witcher 2. The best value I could find was the HD7750 at around £75 for 1GB DDR5. Now that I've stuck my head over the parapet, battle will commence (probably mainly on the lines that if you REALLY want to play games you need to throw a lot more money at your GFX card).
andydis Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 i have just ordered 1 of these for a REMOTEFX project, 2GB looks good PowerColor HD 6570 2GB DDR3 DVI-D VGA HDMI PCI-E.. | Ebuyer.com
Neil-Millgate Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 Personally I favour an Nvidia card, you should be able to find a nice 1gb 9500GT on ebay for about £50
chazzy2501 Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 Radeon HD 7770 1GB Quite an awesome card only £83.99 a little over your budget but it comes with 2 games! ARIAnet Radeon HD 7770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card + 2 Games! - Aria PC
fairm010 Posted January 30, 2013 Author Posted January 30, 2013 Thanks Tom, ive replied with my spec.
fairm010 Posted January 30, 2013 Author Posted January 30, 2013 i have just ordered 1 of these for a REMOTEFX project, 2GB looks good PowerColor HD 6570 2GB DDR3 DVI-D VGA HDMI PCI-E.. | Ebuyer.com Like this very much.. Will see what Tom comes back with. Bookmarked!
featured_spectre Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 Not sure if it is still on but ebuyer had a Radeon 5990 for £90 during the first couple of weeks of Jan, not been on since. Otherwise I'd look at that 7770 card above.
sonofsanta Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 (edited) I would say the 7770 is the best GPU in that price range - well, just outside it, technically, but the cheapest 7750 was £80 and it's worth £7 to bump up to the full 7770. PowerColor HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI.. | Ebuyer.com If you prefer nVidia the 650 is the best you can get for that price, but it's not quite as capable as the 7770 as it's much too neutered from a higher chip, whereas the 7770 is a full chip aimed at that price segment. Inno3D GTX 650 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI mini HDMI PCI-E.. | Ebuyer.com Either way you'll notice a massive difference over a GT210, they're only good for running additional monitors IMHO Also - with GPUs - the amount of RAM is as relevant to performance as megapixels are to cameras. A big shiny number to stick on the box that is irrelevant to the picture quality you'll actually get any decent GPU chip will come with at least 1Gb, if you're running sufficiently powerful games at stupidly high enough resolutions then you'll be spending money on the top end cards that come with 2Gb+ these days anyway. Not sure if it is still on but ebuyer had a Radeon 5990 for £90 during the first couple of weeks of Jan, not been on since. I would hazard a guess that a system that has been running a 210 would literally - and I mean literally - catch fire once you plugged a 5990 in, if you even had enough power connectors in the first place Edited January 30, 2013 by sonofsanta
LeMarchand Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 I would say the 7770 is the best GPU in that price range - well, just outside it, technically, but the cheapest 7750 was £80 and it's worth £7 to bump up to the full 7770. PowerColor HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI.. | Ebuyer.com How critical are the PSU min specs? I'd considered that card (though my original budget was £60!), but it says 450W PSU (mine is 350W) and thought that if i was replacing the PSU + GFX card I might as well get a new board while I was at it! Gorramit! just noticed the 7750 needs a 400W PSU. Would either be OK on a MSI 7502 micro ATX mobo, btw?
3s-gtech Posted January 30, 2013 Posted January 30, 2013 The PSU specs are usually greatly overstated. Bear in mind that the 7770 uses up to 106W or so - work out what the rest of your PC uses alongside that. For a mid range PC, you'll often find that the core system uses around 150W when pushed. A higher-end machine may uses 250W+. Give it a try on a 350W PSU, if it's decent quality, it'll cope I expect. At £60, you're looking at the 6570 or Nvidia GT640 1GB DDR3, a big step down in ability. You won't regret the extra spend. 1
sonofsanta Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 Plug your specs in @ eXtreme Power Supply Calculator with a bit of capacitor aging on and see what it spits out, but to be honest 350W will probably be fine - the 7770 is really not that power hungry. That's assuming you have a decent brand name 350W PSU, mind - Antec, Corsair etc. If it's a cheap-as-chips PSU from eBuyer etc. then it be a lower rated PSU, in reality, that's capable of 350W at peak but not sustained. Drop the make of it in here and someone will have an opinion for you, if not me And as @3s-gtech says, you'll not regret the extra spend, not at this end of the market; that £20/£25 saved will half your performance. The 7750/7770 are the first decent GPUs, I would say; they're the first point on the linear price/performance curve at any rate, below them performance will drop off sharply for a less-than-proportional saving. 1
LeMarchand Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 Thanks for all the advice. Don't know about the OP, but I found it most useful. Will probably go for the 7770, but will have to get a new PSU (no PCI plug and only 1 spare molex) though considering just replacing the whole system, or upgrading it to a (virtually) a whole new system in stages.
Michael Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 I'd always go for Nvidia over ATI any day - and before anyone asks, I have tried both! Realistically you don't require 2GB of graphics memory unless you're running incredibly high resolutions! I'd rather have 1GB of faster graphics memory and processor, rather than 2GB of slower graphics memory.
sonofsanta Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 Thanks for all the advice. Don't know about the OP, but I found it most useful. Will probably go for the 7770, but will have to get a new PSU (no PCI plug and only 1 spare molex) though considering just replacing the whole system, or upgrading it to a (virtually) a whole new system in stages. You will probably get a Molex->PCI-E adapter with the new GPU anyway, I think the 7770 only wants one 6-pin PEG connector doesn't it? You should only need to upgrade if your PSU isn't powerful enough, connectors should be fine.
CamelMan Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 If your stuck for stuff like this - I normally check out Tomshardware and look for the latest comparison run. They tend to break to into price brackets - decide on your budget and check out the sort of thing you get for your £'s. Might not give you "the one for you" but might point you in the right sort of direction.
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