Reviews - Three-way budget graphics card shootout: what do you get for £30?

[HEXUS]

We tell you what's worth buying in the super-budget discrete graphics-card market. Got £30 or less to spend? Read this.

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[Dreaming]

Good article.

It's a shame almost you couldn't fit the 3470 into your testing as I'm interested in getting one soon (for a HTPC and wanted to take advantage of the hybrid crossfire which the 36xx series doesn't allow). But that's just because it doesn't include the actual card I'm interested in getting

Definately proves at least that you can game on a budget, there are plenty who insist anything less than an 8800 / 3870 is not worth trying to play on. With casual gamers paving the way for the future... (supposedly) entry level cards I reckon will become increasingly significant in how Nvidia / ATI develop and market their products.

[SiM]

Thanks for the review, I don't mean to criticise it but isn't it too focused towards gaming. TBH, no one is going to buy these cards for gaming... They will only buy for HTPC usage. I think more attention on the HTPC capabilities (testing HDMI audio, testing different films and codecs, power consumption while decoding, testing with single core cpus too as many people make their old single core systems into htpcs). I have never seen HDMI audio being tested... It might not even work properly! Or it might not support all the lossless codecs or have other problems.

Typo in the overclocking table:
Graphics cards Gigabyte GeForce 8400 GS 256MiB HIS Radeon HD 3450 Silence 256MiB Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 512MiB
Clocks 459/918/800 594/594/792 594/594/990
Core/shader increase % 20.9 19.3 19.3
Memory increase % 22.5 11.4 3.6
ET: QW 1,280x1,024 increase % 23.8 14.1°C 13.3

[Tarinder]

SiM,

Thanks for the input.

I'd say you can game on these cards at 1,024x768 with basic settings.

As it happens, we have an upcoming article that talks about which choices one should make with respect to an HTPC system, and we'll explicitly look at all non-3D features in detail.

[SiM]

SiM,

Thanks for the input.

No problem. Thanks for the review
We all appreciate the hard work that you guys put into making them.

I'd say you can game on these cards at 1,024x768 with basic settings.

Well gaming on these card is possible with that configuration... but you get no where near the proper gaming experience. If you are going to buy 2 or 3 games its going to cost you around £40-50... why spend that much on games and only £30 on graphics? Personally, I think you need at least a 8600GT or a HD 3650 to get your money's worth any modern game.

As it happens, we have an upcoming article that talks about which choices one should make with respect to an HTPC system, and we'll explicitly look at all non-3D features in detail.

Awesome, I look forward to reading it

[MSIC]

Personally, I think you need at least a 8600GT or a HD 3650 to get your money's worth any modern game.

I always like these kind of reviews, it's kind of weirdly cool to see what you can get at the bottom end. The other thing though is that 1024 x 768 isn't in fact a rubbish resolution, in fact it's damn near "high-def" as in HD-TV, which may well be one of the intended markets for these cards
*Hint* 1366 *Cough* 768 Hexus boys & girls
On top of all that, loads of people like playing older games (Diablo 2 anyone .
I agree with your comment about 'modern games', but i still think the article has merit both has an interest piece, and a practical one.

[baius]

No Crysis. No 1080p gaming. Then again: "No chance..."

Now a real critique: It would have been useful if you could have taken power consumptions for the whole system.

Perhaps in that upcoming HTPC article you mentioned, could you look into that there, please?

(The less power needed, the smaller a PSU can be, and the smaller the overall case design can be, which is a benefit.)

[SiM]

I always like these kind of reviews, it's kind of weirdly cool to see what you can get at the bottom end. The other thing though is that 1024 x 768 isn't in fact a rubbish resolution, in fact it's damn near "high-def" as in HD-TV, which may well be one of the intended markets for these cards
*Hint* 1366 *Cough* 768 Hexus boys & girls
On top of all that, loads of people like playing older games (Diablo 2 anyone .
I agree with your comment about 'modern games', but i still think the article has merit both has an interest piece, and a practical one.

Even if you game at x 768... if you are serious about it then you should really invest about £10 or £20 more and get something half decent that can do native resolution with at highish detail... It just seems odd that a "gamer" who supposedly spends at least £60 a year on games (that's 3 game, hardly many)... would only spend half of that on graphics!

That is a great idea for the next low/mid range review! Test 1360x768 gaming!!

[baius]

It just seems odd that a "gamer" who supposedly spends at least £60 a year on games (that's 3 game, hardly many)... would only spend half of that on graphics!

Yeah, it seems I spend probably 3 times as much on the "back-end", than I do on the games themselves...

[Chrisakacloud]

Would these cards be good to use with Counterstrike Source? I need a card badly as my integrated graphics card well it sucks as most of them seem to.