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Thread: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

  1. #1
    HEXUS.social member Allen's Avatar
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    Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    Hi,

    I'm in the market for a new graphics card to replace my aging ATi X1600 Pro. I would like something with a little more umph but something that is not stupidly overpriced.

    I was looking at a 9600GT but they seem to be around the £80-90 mark and to be honest I would rather only spend about £50-60. I'm assuming that since graphics card have evolved a lot from late 2005 when the X1600 Pro was released I should be able to get a better card for such little money, but I'm not sure of the power of these new cards (there doesn't seem to be a site that I can use to compare old vs. new cards to show the actual real world difference rather than showing the number of cores, speed of memory and versions of pixel and vertex shaders and other things that I have no idea how they compare).

    Would an nVidia 9600 perform much better than my ATi? Could I really get that much of a decent card for £50-60?

    BTW, my spec is in my profile, my main issue is my mobo that claims it supports a "1 x PCI Express Graphics slot (@ x4 mode)", I did ask previously and was advised that it shouldn't be an issue on less powerful cards as they won't be able to utilise the speed of the connection anyway. Other than that my other components shouldn't be too much of a bottleneck.

  2. #2
    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
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    Re: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    A PCI-E 4x slot might be a limitation for newer cards IMHO. I have a 8x slot on my motherboard though and there is little real world performance difference when compared to a 16x slot however.

    The best card in your price range will be an ATI HD4670:

    http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/d...s=hd%204670&d=

    Novatech has free postage.

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    Allen (11-03-2009)

  4. #3
    HEXUS.social member Allen's Avatar
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    Re: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    Thanks, I'll take a look into that.

    Might as well add my 19" TFT only displays 1440x900 so the card should be capable of running 3D games at that resolution, I don't play any modern day games that need power houses (mainly play EVE, COD4, RTS games) however I would like to play GTA IV at a better resolution that 640x480!

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    Senior Member Mithrandir's Avatar
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    Re: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    Definitely the best graphics card for your price bracket is the one CAT-THE-FIFTH suggested.
    Cavalier-X: Biostar TP45-HP ¦ E4600@3.1ghz - Xigmatek Red Scorpion (OCZ Freeze) ¦ OCZ ReaperX 2x2gb (792mhz @ 4-4-4--12) ¦ Xigmatek NRP-MC651 ¦
    Palit 8800gt ¦ X-fi Fatal1ty Gamer ¦ Coolermaster Cavalier 3 (Silver/Windowed) ¦

    Poseidon Magma: MSI P45 Zilent ¦ E6300@3.0ghz - Coolermaster Hyper 212 (MX-2) ¦ Corsair 2x2gb (880mhz @ 5-5-5-15) ¦ Corsair HX450w ¦
    xfx 9600gt Alphadog edition (780/1950/1000) ¦ X-fi Gamer ¦ Gigabyte Poseiden ¦

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    Allen (11-03-2009)

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    Re: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    If your worried about your performance drop using a x4 PCI-e then take a look at this Tom's hardware testing at x16, x8, x4, x1. It's a really interesting read.

  8. Received thanks from:

    Allen (11-03-2009)

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    HEXUS.social member Allen's Avatar
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    Re: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    Nice find, thanks Hyper. It looks like there's very little difference between x4, x8 and x16 at the moment, especially on lower powered cards it seems.

    I ordered the Sapphire HD4670, should be here tomorrow (thanks to Scan), I will see how it compares to my aging X1600 Pro.

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    Re: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    + 1 for a 4670

  11. #8
    HEXUS.social member Allen's Avatar
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    Re: Cheap but powerful GPU to replace an ATi X1600 Pro

    Got the HD 4670 delivered yesterday, and wow, what an improvement! Thanks to all for your help, it's a lovely little card! (and kudos to Scan for yet another awesomely quick delivery! )

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