Help required please

Hi all,

I'm looking for a new graphics card, maximum £80 and was after some advice. After much googling, I came across this site and was hoping for some help. I have read the sticky about "which card" and hoped if I gave some more info, someone could point me in the right direction.

I'm not too hot on sys specs, but here is mine as I know it:

AMD Athlon 64bit dual core 4000+
3GB RAM
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
NVIDIA 8600GT 512MB

Not great, but was working fine. Nothing is overclocked as I don't know how to do that and don't want to screw up my system.

All I'm looking for is to buy a better graphics card as mine just packed up and I want to carry on playing Fallout 3! As I mentioned, Max available is £80.

I'm new here, and I'm not very tech minded. I'd like something I can slot into PC, attach monitor, play game. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

what res you going to be running the games at?

I've got it running through my TV at 1280 by 720. I'm using a DVI cable with a HDMI adapter.

I'm probably behind the times but 9800gt *was* a good value-for-money card. Or was it the 9600. Anyway, I recommend bit-tech's monthly tech round up:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...buy-dec-2008/1

Budget build
Graphics Card
First Choice: Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 PCS+ 512MB
UK Pricing: £129.33 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $169.99 (ex. Tax)

Alternative: Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT
UK Pricing: £96.74 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $119.90 (ex. Tax)

Bit out of your price range tho :/.

edit: Look at the 4670. Quite cheap and if you make it to 30 posts you get free delivery from scan.

If £80 really is the max then 9600GT is probably the best you can get £78 delivered http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147945 if you can stretch an extra £10 then the really is a big improvement to be had from getting a 4830 for £90 delivered http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151393

Excellent, thank you all very much. I'm going to check out the suggestions now and try to convince the wife to allow me an extra £10 for the 4830! Your advice is much appreciated, thank you.

4670 looks great considering the price difference. But 4830 is the one I'm going for. I hope I can convince the missus for the extra tenner! Thanks for your help, now if anyone can teach me how to overclock, that would be great!!

Any of the 3 cards mentioned will be a good step up in performance over the 8600gt, anything below 8800 from the 8 series was pritty rubbish even when they first came out.

I will give you another sugestion the slightly older ati 3870 for £78
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/153222

with my 9600 GT i could run fallout 3 at max specs at 1680 resolution at about 30fps outside and 55fps inside, so fairly smooth. it's on scan for about 72 quid

What is your PSU rated BTW?? Whereas the HD4670 does not require any additional power from the PSU the HD4830 does!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

What is your PSU rated BTW?? Whereas the HD4670 does not require any additional power from the PSU the HD4830 does!!

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Not just the rating, the brand aswell :P

Brand is important and then the rating on the 12v rail the total power is irrelevant when concerned with graphics cards.

Any half decent power supply though will be more than enough for a 4830 with an overclocked E8400 peak power is ~210W for the system so as long as the PSU has 16A on the 12v rail it will be more than enough.

In comparison the same system with a 4670 draws ~165W, a 9600GT ~180W and a 8800GT/9800GT ~190W (similar performance to 4830).

At a resolution of 1280*1024 (so slightly higher than your TV) using the 4830 as a base line, you lose 12% performance going for a 9600GT and 36% going for a 4670, the 8600 GTS (so better than what you had) is only 46% of the performance of a 4830!

All data taken from Techpowerup review of the Powercolor 4830 (which is the model I linked to before).

Performance - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...D_4830/26.html
Power Consumption - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...D_4830/24.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Webby

Brand is important and then the rating on the 12v rail the total power is irrelevant when concerned with graphics cards.

Any half decent power supply though will be more than enough for a 4830 with an overclocked E8400 peak power is ~210W for the system so as long as the PSU has 16A on the 12v rail it will be more than enough.

In comparison the same system with a 4670 draws ~165W, a 9600GT ~180W and a 8800GT/9800GT ~190W (similar performance to 4830).

At a resolution of 1280*1024 (so slightly higher than your TV) using the 4830 as a base line, you lose 12% performance going for a 9600GT and 36% going for a 4670, the 8600 GTS (so better than what you had) is only 46% of the performance of a 4830!

All data taken from Techpowerup review of the Powercolor 4830 (which is the model I linked to before).

Performance - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...D_4830/26.html
Power Consumption - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/P...D_4830/24.html

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The rating is not only the total power supplied and also what each of the rails can supply. It will be said on the side of the PSU so that is why I asked!! :rolleyes:

In the end people should be asking the OP about his PSU first and not just give an instant answer on what graphics card to buy. Many ready built PCs have shockingly poor PSUs which are just barely up to the job!! :censored: Would you want to run a HD4830 on a no-brand 300W PSU for example?? Remember that BOTH the HD3850 and HD3870 require 30 watts less at idle to run than even an HD4830!! At load it requires more power than both of them. Even the 9800GT requires less power to run at load than an HD4830.

Okay so say the OP needs to get a new PSU as well then the question is does the budget change? Or is it still £90 if its still £90 then ~£40 is going on a decent PSU which leaves £50 for the graphics card which means the 4650 or 9500GT are the best available cards. Then you need to ask if they are going to only use a 4650/9500 then do they really need a PSU upgrade?

Anyway its a moot point while I agree the PSU is important (in fact the most important component) when somebody asks what is the best graphics card I can get for £X we should not all immediately say what PSU do you have we should answer the question at hand what is the best graphics card for the budget. Raise the point that the PSU is important and to make sure they check for compatibility and suitability but it is up to them to decide if they are happy with the PSU and want to use it with the new card or not.

And to answer your question no I would not use a budget/no name PSU to power a 4830 but then again I wouldn't use one to power anything.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Webby

Okay so say the OP needs to get a new PSU as well then the question is does the budget change? Or is it still £90 if its still £90 then ~£40 is going on a decent PSU which leaves £50 for the graphics card which means the 4650 or 9500GT are the best available cards. Then you need to ask if they are going to only use a 4650/9500 then do they really need a PSU upgrade?

Anyway its a moot point while I agree the PSU is important (in fact the most important component) when somebody asks what is the best graphics card I can get for £X we should not all immediately say what PSU do you have we should answer the question at hand what is the best graphics card for the budget. Raise the point that the PSU is important and to make sure they check for compatibility and suitability but it is up to them to decide if they are happy with the PSU and want to use it with the new card or not.

And to answer your question no I would not use a budget/no name PSU to power a 4830 but then again I wouldn't use one to power anything.

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The OP said himself/herself that they are not tech minded in the opening post!!

This indicates that they either bought it from a retailer or perhaps someone assembled it for them .

Hence it is valid to ask them about the PSU in this case. They may not even realise that their PSU is good enough to run a better card especially if it the existing card was bus powered. Many people are not aware about this. So what happens if the OP buys a super -duper new graphics card recommended here and their PSU craps out?? Did anyone bother to ask or even tell them?? No!:censored:

Another point nobody has examined is that the existing card has died. Perhaps the OP could get another one under warranty or a replacement system as some parts have a 2 or 3 year warranty! Most people only assume a one year warranty at most! Is the OP aware of this??

Or why the existing card died?
it could be an ebay system with a crappy psu that came with the case, which could be the reason in the first place.

We are slipping a bit there, should of asked for more details first. :embarrassed: