Shopping for a new GPU
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Beef_Cake,
Posted on: 2010-09-16 12:31 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
How limited?
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then you pretty much don't have any options.
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Originally Posted by Quinch
A quick question; I'm planning to replace my aging GeForce8600. Thus, what would be a decent card to pick up for someone with a limited budget? No ATI, though - burnt myself there once too many.
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Right. Because we all know that Nvidia has stopped making cards.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
then you pretty much don't have any options.
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Actually, there are plenty of options and I'm sure one of the video card experts who post on this forum will be here soon to recommend a great Nvidia card.
I replaced my 8800 with a GTX 260 a while ago. Just look for the lower numbers in each series if you are looking for a budget card. Be careful of the lowest, though. You may not be getting very good performance on some of them.
Well, without any ATI options, that does only leave Nvidia cards to choose from.
Since we don't know how limited your budget is, but we do know what card you're currently using, the only two real options from Nvidia for you at the moment are either a Geforce GTS 450 or a GT 240. These are really the only two cards at the lower end of the budget spectrum that will be an improvement over a 8600 GT. Yes, there is still the GTS 250 to be found, but it has the same cost as a GTS 450, so you might as well get the more powerful card when the cost is the same; any cards in the 200 series lower than the GT 240 will not have any significant performance increase over your 8600 GT.
The GT 240 is a card that was introduced last fall to replace the the 9600 GT. It has a lower power consumption than the 9600 GT or 8600 GT and roughly matched the 9600 GT for performance. As it is from the last generation, it is only DirectX 10 capable. The one gigabyte memory version of the card can be found on Newegg.com right now for anywhere from $85 to $110, plus taxes and shipping.
The GTS 450 is Nvidia's latest entry from its 400 series of DirectX 11 capable cards. This card is obviously the replacement for the GTS 250, but has significantly lower power consumptions levels (should match you 8600 GT, which means your present power supply should be just fine); and for performance sits between the GTS 250 and GTX 260 from the previous generation. Overall reviews on this card have been mixed, as many reviewers feel that unless CUDA/Direct Compute applications have a higher priority than games for the purchaser, the card is generall outperformed by the Radeon 5770 for a few dollars more, or at least pretty evenly matched with a Radeon 5750 for the same price or less. Be warned about this card though: it is a dual slot card, so you might have to rearrange other add in cards since your 8600 GT is only a single slot card. The card just launched this week and can presently be found on Newegg.com starting at $130, plus taxes and shipping.
Anyway, that's my two cents worth. I'd honestly suggest taking a closer look at ATI/AMD before making a decision, simply because they have improved by leaps and bounds since the days of the 8 series and 2000 series and presently have the best price/performance/power consumption ratio overall. In my opinion, the best card to go for at roughly the $100 price range would be a Radeon 5670 one gigabyte card: a huge performance increase while having a lower power consumption than your 8600 GT, which means you have no concerns about your power supply's capability of handling it.
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About a hundred dollarish {including tax}. Overall, I'm not looking for anything top-of-the-line, but rather something that'll last me a couple of years, both in terms of keeping up with the potential of extra shiney, as well as simply working that long {as my faithful 8600 might be about to croak}.|
Originally Posted by Gaia
How limited?
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Originally Posted by je_saist
then you pretty much don't have any options.
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Originally Posted by steveb
Anyway, that's my two cents worth. I'd honestly suggest taking a closer look at ATI/AMD before making a decision, simply because they have improved by leaps and bounds since the days of the 8 series and 2000 series and presently have the best price/performance/power consumption ratio overall.
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Anyway, for the specifics... I've checked out the two cards you've recommended, and these are my cheapest options {tax included}
Palit GT240 SUPER+/1GB; GT240 SUPER+/1GB, NVIDIA GeForce, GT240, PCIe x16, 1024 MB, DDR3, 128-bit, Radni takt GPU 550 MHz, Takt memorije 1580 MHz, DVI-I, HDTV da, 1x D-sub, HDMI, 2560x1600
- Cheapest of the lot with around $115, but I don't know how well it would fare in the long term.VC GAINWARD PCI Express 2.0 x16 nVidia GeForce GTS 250 with CUDA Green Edition GDDR3 512MB/256bit, 700MHz(core)/1000MHz(mem), HDTV+HDCP, VGA, DVI, HDMI, VGA Cooler (Double Slot)
- around $133, which is more or less acceptable. There's a 1GB version available, but that ups the price to around $170 - how big a performance effect would it have?Palit GTS450/1GB; GTS450/1GB, NVIDIA GeForce, GTS450, PCIe x16, 1024 MB, DDR5, 128-bit, Clockspeed GPU 783 MHz, Memory clockspeed 3608 MHz, DVI-I, HDTV da, 1x D-sub, HDMI, 2560x1600
- around $192. A bit pricey, but I might be persuaded if it's a better investment in the long term. However, since you mentioned it's less of a gaming card and more of a "graphics" card, probably not.Which of these would you say would give the best performance compared to the price? I could shell out more cash if needed, but I'm prioritizing around getting my money's worth.
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Okay, we get it.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
then you pretty much don't have any options.
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You're an ardent ATI fan with a real hate-on for nVidia.
We understand. Really, we do.
Now can we stop with the silly rhetoric in place of helpful advice or questions meant to clarify his financial situation?
To Quinch: Can you clarify what your budget looks like?
- How much are you looking to spend on a vidcard?
- What's your maximum budget limit? (Helpful to know, in case a small increase in spending will yield a nicer, higher performance card for you.)
Self-built or store-bought? We need to know in case there are PSU requirements that your machine might currently not support.
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Okay, so you're in Europe, so that obviously does change pricing significantly. |
Originally Posted by Quinch
About a hundred dollarish {including tax}. Overall, I'm not looking for anything top-of-the-line, but rather something that'll last me a couple of years, both in terms of keeping up with the potential of extra shiney, as well as simply working that long {as my faithful 8600 might be about to croak}.
So you keep telling me, yet I'm no less averse to blowing cash, time and effort into dealing with driver issues just for the sake of getting to say "I told you so". From what I can tell, ATI always had a slight lead over nVidia in the bang-per-buck arena, but on the two occasions where I bought one, I had constant issues with driver support, and the fact that I keep seeing "issues with Catalyst {insert version here}" do little to reassure me. So I'm willing to spend a little more to avoid headaches later on. Anyway, for the specifics... I've checked out the two cards you've recommended, and these are my cheapest options {tax included} Palit GT240 SUPER+/1GB; GT240 SUPER+/1GB, NVIDIA GeForce, GT240, PCIe x16, 1024 MB, DDR3, 128-bit, Radni takt GPU 550 MHz, Takt memorije 1580 MHz, DVI-I, HDTV da, 1x D-sub, HDMI, 2560x1600 - Cheapest of the lot with around $115, but I don't know how well it would fare in the long term.VC GAINWARD PCI Express 2.0 x16 nVidia GeForce GTS 250 with CUDA Green Edition GDDR3 512MB/256bit, 700MHz(core)/1000MHz(mem), HDTV+HDCP, VGA, DVI, HDMI, VGA Cooler (Double Slot) - around $133, which is more or less acceptable. There's a 1GB version available, but that ups the price to around $170 - how big a performance effect would it have?Palit GTS450/1GB; GTS450/1GB, NVIDIA GeForce, GTS450, PCIe x16, 1024 MB, DDR5, 128-bit, Clockspeed GPU 783 MHz, Memory clockspeed 3608 MHz, DVI-I, HDTV da, 1x D-sub, HDMI, 2560x1600 - around $192. A bit pricey, but I might be persuaded if it's a better investment in the long term. However, since you mentioned it's less of a gaming card and more of a "graphics" card, probably not.Which of these would you say would give the best performance compared to the price? I could shell out more cash if needed, but I'm prioritizing around getting my money's worth. |
As for your aversion to ATI/AMD: that's fine by me, I'm no brand loyalist (I leap from Nvidia to ATI/AMD as the mood suits me), and given your history, I completely understand.
In my opinion, I do think that a GTS 450 is your best long term bet.
I did mention that review sites considered ATI/AMD cards a better value at the price range when all factors such as price, performance and power consumption were concerned, but do not think that the GTS 450 is not a highly capable gaming card: it completely keeps pace with its direct ATI/AMD competitor (Radeon 5750), and many of these reviews were also coming from the perspective of expecting more out of the card given the surprising performance of the GTX 460 introduced in July. This is cutting edge technology and represents a huge leap forward in mid-range graphics cards from Nvidia. A card like this should net you a 100 to 115% increase over your current performance across all games.
Conversely, both the GTS 250 and GT 240 represent technology that is essentially two graphics generations out of date: both cards use G92 variant chips, which are two generations old despite the cards themselves being from Nvidia's previous generation. These cards will net you probably 15 to 35% performance increase across all games over your current 8600 GT (the GT 240 will net about 15 to 20%; the GTS 250 will net about 30 t o 35%)
My philosophy is that if you're going to upgrade, then you should try to grab the newest technology whenever possible for the longest possible practical lifespan (able to play new games at mid-range settings for several years to come).
Now, given the type of pricing that you're looking at, you could also consider waiting another month or so for Nvidia to release its GT 240 replacement, which will probably be called GT 440. It will take over the current price point of the GT 240, and still come close to doubling the type of performance that you get out of your 8600 GT, and will also get you a longer practical lifespan. From a price standpoint, that might be your best option, unless the money for this upgrade is available now, but might not be in a month or so.
Slightly on a side note for anyone with an 8600 GT, replacing it as soon as reasonably possible is a good idea. The 8600 GT was replaced by the far superior 9600 GT in under a year for good reason: a little known fact about these particular cards is that they have one of the highest failure rates for any graphics card released in the last five years; cracked capacitors being the most common problem. The problem is not isolated to any specific brand but rather comes from design flaws and poor component choices by Nvidia made during the design stage.
It depends on the available 12 volt power, if you have space for a double wide card (8600GT or 8600GTS tended to be a single slot card, the 8600GT didn't need external power) and of course your price limit.
First, nVidia hasn't gotten any of their 400 series down in the sub $100 price range. So that leaves the older GT 2xx and 9xxx cards, which are rapidly vanishing from the marketplace, but are at clearance prices.
So assuming you want something noticeably faster than your 8600GT/GTS, that basically points us at the GT 240. Power wise, it doesn't use an external power connector but does use a bit more power than the 8600GT. Performance wise it's around 50% faster than the 8600 series in games.
So the limiting factor is width. Can you fit a double wide card into your system? Can you fit a card that uses a double wide bracket? I ask these two questions because you can have a single bracket card with a double slot cooler attached.
The GT 240 comes in two variants. One that uses slower GDDR3 memory and one that use faster GDDR5 memory.
Of the manufacturers that I respect, only the MSI version has 1GB of GDDR5 memory, but it is double slot, double wide. Currently $85, $55 after rebate.
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Well, if I can expect a significant price drop in the near future, I could {hardware willing} wait another month or two for a better deal. If anything gives up the ghost, I can do without for a day or two it would take me to get an adequate replacement. What channels could I watch to see when nVidia releases new GPUs, though?|
Originally Posted by steveb
Now, given the type of pricing that you're looking at, you could also consider waiting another month or so for Nvidia to release its GT 240 replacement, which will probably be called GT 440. It will take over the current price point of the GT 240, and still come close to doubling the type of performance that you get out of your 8600 GT, and will also get you a longer practical lifespan. From a price standpoint, that might be your best option, unless the money for this upgrade is available now, but might not be in a month or so.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
It depends on the available 12 volt power, if you have space for a double wide card (8600GT or 8600GTS tended to be a single slot card, the 8600GT didn't need external power) and of course your price limit.
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A lot of video cards now fit in the space of two expansion slots, one for the card, one for the heatsink fan. Most have a double wide rear bracket, where the ports and fan exhaust are located.
Others still occupy two slots because of the heatsink/fan but only has a single wide rear bracket like any single slot card.
The reason that this can be important is for a time, many store bought PCs from HP, Dell, and others use a BTX case/motherboard combo which is "upside down and flipped" in it's layout with no adjacent slot and bracket opening next to the video card slot. Now a double wide card may still fit in those cases, assuming there are no obstructions like a tall heatsink, but there is noway a card with a double wide bracket would fit. There simply not an opening for the other "half" of the bracket.
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Personaly I'd save and get a low end Radeoon 5xxx or GeForce 4xx card.
I just picked up a Radeon 5850 and it performs beutifly in Pretoria getting around 30-40 fps in the outside world with everything but ambiet occ turned up.
you may also need a new power supply with what ever new card you get. push a power supply to it's max out put all the time is bad and will cause it to fail sooner than later
and of course case size is a concern for any new video card. not just how deep it is, but also how long. you need to make sure that what ever you get isn't going to be longer than the available space that your case has. for instance the 5850 i just got is about 10 inchs long it's an inch sorter that the main part of my case. If i got a 5870 or 5970 i'd have had to cut my case to make them fit. the 5970 is 12 1/2 inch's btw.
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Alrighty, a quick check - would a Zotac-made GTS 450 with a gig of DDR5 RAM be worth around $150 {tax included}?
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If you're dead set against the ATI brands, which I won't get into. Then I would suggest you go with this card since you are looking to spend around $150.|
Originally Posted by Quinch
Alrighty, a quick check - would a Zotac-made GTS 450 with a gig of DDR5 RAM be worth around $150 {tax included}?
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EVGA GeForce GTX 460 or the GTX 260 which seems to be a more common card for gamers from what I've read.
I personally use ATI, I have a CrossFire-X setup runnin 2 - HD5870 Sapphire Vapor-X cards (Original Release, not the re-release version) and I have to say it was quite a purchase, but I'm glad I spent the money, as it blows away anything I've ever gamed on. Now I understand why people fought over them
But seriously though, no matter what brand card you go with, there are always problems with drivers and or the hardware. I was with Nvidia for many years, and switched to ATI. Both have great cards. But the ATI cards I run now have been nothing but great for me and haven't had any problems out of it except for one. Which was a eyefinity problem which has since then been corrected when the cards first came out.
But over all, I love them. Hope ya find a card you enjoy as much as I love these 2 cards!
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A quick question; I'm planning to replace my aging GeForce8600. Thus, what would be a decent card to pick up for someone with a limited budget? No ATI, though - burnt myself there once too many.