What cheap-ish card?

[Saracen]

A friend is after a new graphics card, having found he's getting a Win7 "Experience" rating of about 4 point something.

I'm just not up to speed on current cards, so I'm after recommendations from those that are up to speed, that being you lot.

His requirements :-

- PCI-E slot
- about £50-ish
- image quality very important
- not a gamer, so gaming performance entirely irrelevant
- doesn't care about brand

Essentially, he's a photography enthusiast and wants the best 2D performance he can get in the price range, that's consistent with good image quality. If he can get compatibility with Photoshop support for hardware acceleration, so much the better.

The budget is a guide and a bit more or a bit less is okay, but he's not looking for a high-end, high-priced gaming card. I don't know exactly what the maximum budget is, but my guess is he'd be reluctant to go to £100 (unless, just perhaps, there was a very convincing reason) and certainly wouldn't go much over it, so the closer to the £50-ish, the better.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Unique]

just keeping an eye on this as i'm after the same. more than one monitor, one vga, one hdmi. i think there are a bunch of low end cards around the £30-£35 amount that are decent, and for 2D only i think there are some around £25 that will also be fine, so no need to spend as much

as to what the cards are, i'm a bit confused myself but i'm sure you will get a stream of replies. i think the radio 5480 or something like that is about £25 and theres something like a 6480 thats about £35 which is the next step up

[t4n6o]

in my previous pc i had upto 5 days ago - my wife has it now - I had this inSparkle GT430 1GB - click here.

Granted its not the best card out there compared to like you nvidia 570's or your radeon 6970's, but i used to watch films, play games, general computer use - web, typing e.t.c. through my 40" TV and i never had a problem with it.

If i remember it cost me just under £50 (like about 4p or somet)

hope this helps

[shaithis]

If he wants IQ over all else, the only real options are the Matrox cards.....although certainly not within that budget and still debatable on the benefits for the cost.

With nv/amd cards....it pretty much a muchness. I believe that the RAMDACs are built into the GPUs now, so a different manufacturer should have no influence on IQ.....it's pretty much down to drivers.

[Saracen]

....

hope this helps

It all helps.

@ shaithis .... that helps, too. Matrox did cross my mind (used them over the years), going back to pre-AGP days, but I haven't looked at prices recently. The comment about RAMDACs is interesting. Thanks.

[scaryjim]

OK, obvious first question that no-one has asked yet - what graphics does he have at the minute Best to know what the starting baseline is before we try to suggest upgrades...

[Saracen]

OK, obvious first question that no-one has asked yet - what graphics does he have at the minute Best to know what the starting baseline is before we try to suggest upgrades...

Dunno, Jim. As I understand it, it's not an upgrade exactly but a second machine. Or rather, it's a rebuild of one and the build of a second, but where he needs new bits (like graphics card) to complete the second, he'll use the card from the first in the second and replace the card in the first. Or something like that.

He just wants the best he can get, for that usage, in or around that budget.

[scaryjim]

Well, I'm not a big photography geek myself, but I know a couple of people who are, so I've thrown it open to them and see if they have any bright ideas. Otherwise, I can't imagine NVidia and ATI are that far apart in 2D performance, so something like a 6570 or GT430. I don't know if size of frame buffer's important in 2D work, but if it is Powercolor do a 2GB 5570 - £49 @ ebuyer. AFAIK all modern ATI and nvidia cards can accelerate photoshop where it benefits...

[DanceswithUnix]

Whilst Matrox did once boast much better image quality, is that really the case still? I remember in my Matrox buying days Nvidia coming on leaps and bounds such that I didn't care any more. Specially in these days of DVI/hdmi I can't see ramdac quality as an issue.

I would probably be looking for something with a big fan, lots of cards in that range have little buzzy whiney ones or inadequate passive heatsinks.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well, I'm not a big photography geek myself, but I know a couple of people who are, so I've thrown it open to them and see if they have any bright ideas. Otherwise, I can't imagine NVidia and ATI are that far apart in 2D performance, so something like a 6570 or GT430. I don't know if size of frame buffer's important in 2D work, but if it is Powercolor do a 2GB 5570 - £49 @ ebuyer. AFAIK all modern ATI and nvidia cards can accelerate photoshop where it benefits...

That memory seems very slow, would be better off with a smaller faster memory version.

Can't really use a 2GB card in a 32 bit OS, may or may not be important here.

[scaryjim]

As I said, I know very little about the requirements for 2D work Assuming the Photoshop stuff he does can be accelerated by graphics cards, I assume he's better off with something from as far up the range as possible though? e.g. 5670 512MB DDR5 £50.30 (as it's over £50 ebuyer will deliver for free, too ), or ... well, I guess you could go for a GT430 which is about the same price - it's a distant second in 3D tasks, but it's also a more compute oriented card than the ATI so it might be better for Photoshop acceleration if he uses any functionality in Photoshop that can be GPU accelerated. You'd need a more specific review than my weak google-fu could track down to check that, though

[Betty_Swallocks]

I always find Toms Hardware the most help when I'm looking for new kit. Here's the link to this months graphics cards reviews.

[Saracen]

....

Can't really use a 2GB card in a 32 bit OS, may or may not be important here.

Good point. I think he's gone Win-7 x64 as part of this process.

[Saracen]

As I said, I know very little about the requirements for 2D work Assuming the Photoshop stuff he does can be accelerated by graphics cards, I assume he's better off with something from as far up the range as possible though? e.g. 5670 512MB DDR5 £50.30 (as it's over £50 ebuyer will deliver for free, too ), or ... well, I guess you could go for a GT430 which is about the same price - it's a distant second in 3D tasks, but it's also a more compute oriented card than the ATI so it might be better for Photoshop acceleration if he uses any functionality in Photoshop that can be GPU accelerated. You'd need a more specific review than my weak google-fu could track down to check that, though

I'd need to know ore about his exact use of Photoshop and exactly what Photoshop functions are accelerated. From memory, it's mainly certain filters and transformations that use GPU acceleration. It's been a while since I looked, but I was under the impression that almost any card would support that acceleration these days, though I just don't remember the exact requirements.

Anyway, I'll point him at this and he can judge for himself. Thanks for any comments, and any yet to come.

[Aradria]

You'd be hard-pushed to find anything better than a 5670 for £50 at the moment