Best sub £50 Graphics card

So i'm in the process of building my mrs a pc, got most of it sorted out and recently got a new motherboard for it :) Anyway i'm now moving onto the GPU,

The few that i've considered are

9600 GT
GT 240
HD 4670

Now baring in mind, my mrs is not a big gamer, might play abit of spore or UT3 but nothing like crysis or farcry! She is also use to ps3 graphics so doesnt mind playing in medium details! (not to mention that fact she plays her ps3 on a really old TV XD)

So with that in mind which would be the best option? or could i save abit mroe and get her a cheaper one? and....does anyone have a el-cheapo gpu laying about collecting dust :) Thanks! :mrgreen:

Be careful what video RAM comes with the cards. The HD4670 should be the DDR3 or GDDR3 version,the 9600GT should be the GDDR3 version and the GT240 should be the GDDR5 version. Also beware as some versions of these cards share system memory.

The 9600GT GDDR3 is still the fastest of all the cards but for £50 you can probably get a faster 8800GT/9800GT or HD4830 off Ebay.

Well again she doesnt need a fancy card hench why im going the cheap way :) an 8800/9800gt would be total overkill and not really used, so i also want to consider the power usage, i am leaning towards the 9600gt, but the gt 240 and the hd 4670 use less power right? also dont require the external power....

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Originally Posted by razer121

Well again she doesnt need a fancy card hench why im going the cheap way :) an 8800/9800gt would be total overkill and not really used, so i also want to consider the power usage, i am leaning towards the 9600gt, but the gt 240 and the hd 4670 use less power right? also dont require the external power....

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The 9800GT Green Edition is bus powered so it is not so bad regarding peak power consumption.

I would probably look at an HD5670 GDDR5(not the HyperMemory version) which is between a 9600GT and a 9800GT in performance but is bus powered and can be had for around £60 to £66 brand new. I suspect you maybe able to get a second-hand one for around £50 off Ebay.

Having said that two of my mates have an HD4670 DDR3/GDDR3 and can play UT3 and SC2 at decent settings under XP and Windows 7.

AFAIK,the HD4670 and HD5670 probably have better idle power consumption than a 9800GT although I am uncertain whether the Green Edition uses lower 2D clockspeeds.

I have a 9800gt in the sales forum if you're interested it has the Akasa vortex heatsink and I could include Zalman fanmate if want it to be quite.