Best graphics card for under 150 Euro

king_of_inismac

Hey guys,


Need to update my desktop. It has a PCI-express slot so want to get a new graphics card. Been looking on Komplett but theres so much choice!

Just need pointing in the right direction!

Thanks,
M

dreamers75

My Sapphire 4870 is 150 on Komplett atm.

Best graphics card ever for price and power. Was 230 when i got it earlier this year and plays every game on high/very high (granted decent Cpu and ****load of ram help)

What CPU and ram have you got?

Deano12345

dreamers75 wrote: »

My Sapphire 4870 is 150 on Komplett atm.

Best graphics card ever for price and power. Was 230 when i got it earlier this year and plays every game on high/very high (granted decent Cpu and ****load of ram help)

What CPU and ram have you got?

Also,what PSU do you have,thats very important

As suggested above,4870's are great but how much do you have to spend ?

PogMoThoin

The psu You got is going to dictate which card You can go for. As dreamers75 said, the 4870 is great value atm, but needs a good psu. Also what case have You got?

Effluo

We also need to know what games you'll be playing and what the resolution of your screen is.

We need to know what type of case you have, so we can tell if the card will fit.

Finally we need to know what type of power supply you have. The 4870 is very power hungry.

Here's the 4870 512mb for less than €120 delivered http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169206

Here's what you prob will end up getting(4770), http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173741 for less than €95 delivered!

It's a low power, low heat, medium performance card great for resolutions less than 1080.

cherryghost

the 4890 has just dipped under 150 on pixmania.

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/2627053/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd4890-1-gb-gddr5.html

BRM

Im after a new card for my Dimension 5150, the PSU looks fairly bulky so im not sure what my limitations are.

Im looking for something around 75-150 euro with HDMI and VGA output at the least, I’ve read some of the cards that link audio on the HDMI can suffer from delayed audio, the main reason to upgrade for me is for watching HD TV/Movies on my new LED TV and Im trying to cut down on cables so if the HDMI can handle audio it would be one less cable, playing games isn’t really a priority but Id like to think it could be done also.

dreamers75

BRM wrote: »

Im after a new card for my Dimension 5150, the PSU looks fairly bulky so im not sure what my limitations are.

Im looking for something around 75-150 euro with HDMI and VGA output at the least, I’ve read some of the cards that link audio on the HDMI can suffer from delayed audio, the main reason to upgrade for me is for watching HD TV/Movies on my new LED TV and Im trying to cut down on cables so if the HDMI can handle audio it would be one less cable, playing games isn’t really a priority but Id like to think it could be done also.

The 4670 doesnt require power, may be your only decent choice.

StopNotWorking

Looks like a 305w PSU. So says dell.us anyway. 4770 would run on that wouldn't it?

Effluo

Well if you want a card that'll play hd video then you will only have to spend around €25

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=434120

This supports audio over hdmi, passive cooling (silent), but... it will not play games(anything graphically intense anyway)!

It's as simple as just plugging this into the slot, install the drivers and off it goes.

If you still decide to go for a gpu capable of playing games at full hd, then you might run into problems with your psu and maybe even with the poor cooling of your case(cards 80+degrees) and the gpu may not even fit into the case to start with!

It's up to you

Effluo

StopNotWorking wrote: »

Looks like a 305w PSU. So says dell.us anyway. 4770 would run on that wouldn't it?

It's hard to know, Psu's rated at certain wattages may not actually be capable of what it's supposed to be...

BRM

Effluo wrote: »

the gpu may not even fit into the case to start with!

Yeah that’s my main concern, paying 150+ on a high end card – it may not fit even if the power is there.

I recon the 4670 will be adequate for what I need, Its about 60 quid and has both HDMI and VGA, my only concern is the audio but I guess ill just have to see how it runs.

I see some of the 4670s are fridge cooled, nice and quiet but how do these units perform usually?

Effluo

http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-radeon-hd-4670-review/4

take a look yourself,

These also support audio over hdmi.

Tough to know though!

king_of_inismac

I've got a Dell precision 370, with about 2Gbs of Ram.

Thanks for the help so far!

Effluo

Inismic what will you be doing with your pc?

dazberry

Effluo wrote: »

Finally we need to know what type of power supply you have. The 4870 is very power hungry.

The 4870 isn't all that power hungry at all (relatively speaking), only about 40w more than my old 1950pro. I think the requirements bar is raised to avoid crap PSUs. I'm only running off a 400w PSU and the draw from the wall never exceeds 200w, but of course not all PSUs are made the same.

D.

Effluo

dazberry wrote: »

The 4870 isn't all that power hungry at all (relatively speaking),

Relative to other gpu's on the market today in it's bracket it is quite power hungry. 40 watts is quite a bit

king_of_inismac

I'll be just using it for work - programming - and some gaming (just got a copy of Left for Dead)....

Also, I'd prefer to be able to use two monitors. Very handy for work.

M

BRM

dreamers75 wrote: »

The 4670 doesnt require power, may be your only decent choice.

It says on the sapphire website the 4670 needs 400W power? Am I goosed here running it on my Dimension 5150?

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?psn=000101&pid=205

Kiith

I bought a 4890 today and some new ram, but i'm not sure if my power supply is up to scratch. Is a 500W PSU good enough to run a 4890 Vapor-X graphics card?

Effluo

BRM wrote: »

It says on the sapphire website the 4670 needs 400W power? Am I goosed here running it on my Dimension 5150?

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?psn=000101&pid=205

BRM
They put crazy wattages for recommended...

This i think is due to the fact that you can get a cheap 600w psu for like €30 in some places, which really should be rated something closer to 300w + will be dog efficient!


Kiith
What psu do you have? The 4890 will prob be fine

Inismac
I'm not quite sure if you need a low profile card or not but the 4670 seems to do fine with l4d http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1011/9/ at lower resolutions.

Den_M

What are the chances of the 4870 or 4890 dropping in price before Christmas? I've got 130 quid left on a 3v voucher and I'm not sure what to get to make the most of it. 130 won't cover a 4870 from Komplett including delivery at the moment but it would cover this :

5750

How much better is the 4870 than the 5570? I've got a 520w PSU and I use a 19" monitor.

Effluo

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169206 the 4870 512mb is just under €120 delivered from here,

I don't think the price of any ATI gpu will go down until the new year when Nvidia finally get their new cards out! The price of 5870's and 5850's has actually gone up "due to increase in demand"

I wouldn't keep my hopes up for the prices to fall, but if you don't mind waiting then there's no harm...

The 4870 would be fantastic for your 19" monitor either way

Den_M

Thanks, that is a good price although I'd rather the 1GB version. If I can find a 1GB 4870 for 130 or under delivered soon I'll probably snap it up.

Edit: A HDMI output is also something I'd like, bought a new 32" Samsung recently and like the idea of hooking it via HDMI, even if the max resolution it supports is 1366 x 768 (it's not 1080)

AlmightyCushion

Den_M wrote: »

Thanks, that is a good price although I'd rather the 1GB version. If I can find a 1GB 4870 for 130 or under delivered soon I'll probably snap it up.

Edit: A HDMI output is also something I'd like, bought a new 32" Samsung recently and like the idea of hooking it via HDMI, even if the max resolution it supports is 1366 x 768 (it's not 1080)

At the resolutions you are playing at, the extra memory on the 1gb version won't matter much if at all. The 1GB will make a big difference at full hd but not much below that.

Effluo

All gpus today come with converters for hdmi and vga or otherwise(depending on what type of slot the card has).

On ATI cards sound over hdmi will also be supported this way, so do not worry about the connection. I'd go along with the Almighty on the vram too

I doubt you will find better value for money than the 4870 512mb

Den_M

I can get this 512MB 4870 from Komplett for 124 quid delivered:

Powercolor 4870

Good deal I guess? My monitors max resolution is 1280*1024 so yeah a 1GB would be silly I suppose.

Effluo

Well it's the same card as the one that i linked to on ebuyer, So i guess it's buyers preference if you wanna buy from komplett that have had consumer issues or you wanna buy for a tenner less from ebuyer that have had consumer issues.

You need to find out what type of power supply you have, this is very important as the 4870 is quite tough relative to other gpu's.

Don't fret if your psu isn't a brand name though as for your resolution there's one great low powered and priced card which would perform really well too!

the 4770
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173741

Den_M

I thought Komplett would be a bit easier since they have a location in Ireland and I've bought from them before without any issues. I read on another thread on boards that buying from Ebuyer can be a bit finnicky regarding delivery and acceptance of Irish credit cards. I think it works out as about the same anyway once you add on Ebuyers delivery and convert from UK to Euro.

I've got a 520w PSU which should be fine I'd imagine.

Thanks for the help Effluo.

Effluo

What's the exact make of the psu?

This is very important

Den_M

It's a Trust Power Master 520W Pro

I learnt afterwards that Trust aren't necessarily the best out there...

Do you think it'll run it without problems? I have't had any issues with the PSU so far. My current GFX card is a x1950 Pro 256MB

BRM

I got the sapphire 4670 this week and its doing the business with the HDMI output and Ive started playing COD Modern Warfare 2 now and its great on the big TV screen!

Im having a bit of trouble with the card when playing full screen Flash media. I watch the NFL and NBA on line on the official websites but when I view full screen the stream hangs. This doesn’t happen with the on board card when viewing the same media. Has anyone had these problems with flash media when viewing full screen?

Its working fine when I leave it in the normal player size but when I change it to full screen after about 10 mins the media hangs and I have to go back to the normal size to continue watching.

There must be a plug-in or an option I can change to stop this from happening?

Overheal

Den_M wrote: »

It's a Trust Power Master 520W Pro

I learnt afterwards that Trust aren't necessarily the best out there...

Do you think it'll run it without problems? I have't had any issues with the PSU so far. My current GFX card is a x1950 Pro 256MB

Its enough wattage to try, at least. If it goes wonky it will go wonky when it tries to deliver high output. Which would just mean no heavy gaming until you can swap out the PSU. It would probably run the card well for most stuff (if not all stuff)

marco_polo

Den_M wrote: »

It's a Trust Power Master 520W Pro

I learnt afterwards that Trust aren't necessarily the best out there...

Do you think it'll run it without problems? I have't had any issues with the PSU so far. My current GFX card is a x1950 Pro 256MB

Best card around for that price would be the HD4890. A good 400W branded PSU would be enough to run it. Trust would not be a very highly rated PSU brand but on balance I think that it should be ok (No promises)

What resolution do you normally game at, you may not even need to spend that much?

marco_polo

BRM wrote: »

I got the sapphire 4670 this week and its doing the business with the HDMI output and Ive started playing COD Modern Warfare 2 now and its great on the big TV screen!

Im having a bit of trouble with the card when playing full screen Flash media. I watch the NFL and NBA on line on the official websites but when I view full screen the stream hangs. This doesn’t happen with the on board card when viewing the same media. Has anyone had these problems with flash media when viewing full screen?

Its working fine when I leave it in the normal player size but when I change it to full screen after about 10 mins the media hangs and I have to go back to the normal size to continue watching.

There must be a plug-in or an option I can change to stop this from happening?

Stage one would be make sure you have the latest ATI catalyst drivers and Flash player .

lmimmfn

marco_polo wrote: »

Best card around for that price would be the HD4890. A good 400W branded PSU would be enough to run it. Trust would not be a very highly rated PSU brand but on balance I think that it should be ok (No promises)

What resolution do you normally game at, you may not even need to spend that much?

Nah, Nvidia 260 216SP is a better choice for the following reasons:
1. better drivers
2. better game configuration( wish ATI would do profiles )
3. Physx supports( ok only a few games use it but batman and Mirrors edge look better with it )
4. Supports AA in batman( its yuck without AA )
5. ATI Drivers suck, 4 months for a fix for FPS in NFS Shift, 3 months after 58x0 series cards are released and they still havnt fixed dual monitor screen flickering due to the 2D clocks being too low.

Im not Nvidia fanboy, but all around they have much much better drivers and you get no real surprises with their cards, i.e. games coming out that should run great but run like crap.

Oh and im running an ATI card at the mo( and an 8800GT for physx ), and have had 3 ATI cards and 3 nvidia cards along the way, so im trying to be as unbiased as possible

marco_polo

D'oh this thread was dead for a month, bit late for advice for the OP

lmimmfn

marco_polo wrote: »

D'oh this thread was dead for a month, bit late for advice for the OP

haha, im as bad as yourself

BadCharlie

The 5770 is lower in performance than the 4890. The 5770 performs around about a 4870 card. However, it has DX11, is much cooler and quieter. If your'e gaming at 1680*1050, get a 5770 (it will be sufficient) - otherwise go for the 4890 if you don't care about the temps or power consumption.

Demonique

I've got a Toshiba laptop. 3GB of RAM. Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5550 @1.83 GHz. 32-bit Operating System. Vista, but hope to be upgrading to Windows 7 in the next few weeks. 250GB hard drive with 109GB free.

What video card would be best for me? I want to get Dragon Age Origins

Funfair

This should probably be posted in the bargain alerts....


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-144-XF

lmimmfn

Demonique wrote: »

I've got a Toshiba laptop. 3GB of RAM. Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5550 @1.83 GHz. 32-bit Operating System. Vista, but hope to be upgrading to Windows 7 in the next few weeks. 250GB hard drive with 109GB free.

What video card would be best for me? I want to get Dragon Age Origins

you have a laptop

Demonique

lmimmfn wrote: »

you have a laptop

Yeah, and your point is?

uberpixie

Demonique wrote: »

Yeah, and your point is?

You can't upgrade the gfx card in a laptop 99.9999999% of the time....... *

Gaming on laptops is an epic fail in general unless you are playing older gamings they are not very graphically intensive.
If you want to play dragon age you are buying a console... or a new desktop pc....




*(except in very very very rare situations (ruby rocking horse shoite situations) where the manufacturer has used a modular gfx card in the making of the laptop, only on very expensive high end gaming laptops.)

cherryghost

hmmm some toshiba laptops can be upgraded. some have spare mxm slots. though you could be paying 200 euro for whats essentially a 90 euro desktop graphics card.

whats the exact model of the laptop?