Budget Gaming Card /€100

Myrddin

Hi Folks

I'm looking to replace an old graphics card that went kaput recently, a GTX8800. The system its running on is a Core2Quad 2.4Ghz, & 4GB system ram. I'm looking to ideally run GTAIV at a playable framerate, I know how badly optimised that game is for the pc though & prob won't have the funds to spend on a decent card that'll run it properly.

The budget is around €100, & I'm looking at things like the Radeon HD7750/GT640 type cards. Some of them alternate between having 1GB GDDR5 & 2GB GDDR3 ram, is it better to have more of the slower type, or less of the faster type? Is there anything that offers more bang-for-buck than these cards?

Any help is appreciated

marco_polo

EnterNow wrote: »

Hi Folks

I'm looking to replace an old graphics card that went kaput recently, a GTX8800. The system its running on is a Core2Quad 2.4Ghz, & 4GB system ram. I'm looking to ideally run GTAIV at a playable framerate, I know how badly optimised that game is for the pc though & prob won't have the funds to spend on a decent card that'll run it properly.

The budget is around €100, & I'm looking at things like the Radeon HD7750/GT640 type cards. Some of them alternate between having 1GB GDDR5 & 2GB GDDR3 ram, is it better to have more of the slower type, or less of the faster type? Is there anything that offers more bang-for-buck than these cards?

Any help is appreciated

You have the budget for a HD7770 or GTX650 (with a small preference for the AMD) which would be about as good as the budget allows.

This one is fairly reasonably priced and delivered for under €100

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-R7770-DDR5-PCI-E-Graphics/dp/B0083XNWLK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1374435546&sr=8-4&keywords=Hd+7770

Definately steer clear of GDDR3 it can hurt performance considerably, I haven't seen it on any cards above some HD7750s though, so any HD7770/GTX650 should be GDD5.

Overheal

go for the GDDR5, and possibly look into overclocking the CPU. A Core2Duo is reasonably old but will have room to clock up. Theres no point in buying a new processor for your Socket/Motherboard at this point, so you might as well burn up the parts you have Overclocking theoretically will shorten the lifespan of your hardware but feck it, most components will long outlive their actual usefulness.

Myrddin

Overheal wrote: »

go for the GDDR5, and possibly look into overclocking the CPU. A Core2Duo is reasonably old but will have room to clock up. Theres no point in buying a new processor for your Socket/Motherboard at this point, so you might as well burn up the parts you have Overclocking theoretically will shorten the lifespan of your hardware but feck it, most components will long outlive their actual usefulness.

It's a Core2Quad, if that makes any difference? Prob not So you reckon less of the GDDR5 memory, is a better tradeoff over more of the GDDR3 memory? Grand, cheers for that.

Yeah no point upgrading the rig at this point, I really don't have the money either. I can prob double the ram in it to 8GB, if that would help?

Thanks for the help so far folks

raymix

I am guessing he has Q6600, there is little you can do to overclock, only the FSB, would need a descent motherboard, too. The CPU even at 2.4Ghz is still fine for gaming, except for some MMOs like Tera or Planetside 2, those would run around 20fps.

As for Graphics card, don't cheap out on it. See if you can wait another week and add 50 euros for either ATI 7850 or GTX 650 ti BOOST, so you can play on very high settings on good framerates. There is a free shipping on them if you get them from amazon UK.
Mind there are 3 versions of this card: GTX 650, GTX 650 TI and GTX 650 TI BOOST. I've got the boost one for my GF with the same CPU as you at 2.4Ghz and she enjoys games like Skyrim, Deadpool, WoW on highest settings at 40FPS min and 60FPS average.

If you are strictly on 100 EUR budget, see if you can get a used one, maybe?

EDIT: Just remembered, you can also try baking your 8800. I did it with mine, and it worked for another 3 months. I've even baked 9800 GX2, still works. Videos how to do it are all over youtube, it's quite fun to do, nothing to lose.

Overheal

The newest Core2Quad still came out in Jan 2010. Most came out in 2007/8. The line was discontinued when the new iCore architecture came out.

Myrddin

raymix wrote: »

As for Graphics card, don't cheap out on it. See if you can wait another week and add 50 euros for either ATI 7850 or GTX 650 ti BOOST, so you can play on very high settings on good framerates. There is a free shipping on them if you get them from amazon UK.
Mind there are 3 versions of this card: GTX 650, GTX 650 TI and GTX 650 TI BOOST. I've got the boost one for my GF with the same CPU as you at 2.4Ghz and she enjoys games like Skyrim, Deadpool, WoW on highest settings at 40FPS min and 60FPS average.

Have been looking at reviews of the 650Ti Boost, impressive card for the price. Hmm, could be worth holding out for. Not easy though when you've a ten year old in your ear about getting a new gfx card!

Another thing, my mainboard is antiquated in comparison to modern ones. It's an MSI P7N Sli Platinum, & doesn't support PCIe 3.0, only 2.0. Would I see a big performance hit using a card built for 3.0 on this mainboard?

raymix

EnterNow wrote: »

Another thing, my mainboard is antiquated in comparison to modern ones. It's an MSI P7N Sli Platinum, & doesn't support PCIe 3.0, only 2.0. Would I see a big performance hit using a card built for 3.0 on this mainboard?

Not at all. Currently the only cards capable of making any difference between the PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 are 1000 euro beasts in SLI/crossfire.
That motherboard is still pretty descent even aged.

Also good choice on GPU. It should work smoothly with your current CPU. Anything higher than this GPU would be bottlenecked by your processor anyway.

Best of luck

marco_polo

One other as yet unmentioned possibility, I spotted a fairly decent price on the HD7790 which would be a reasonable option as well, slotting somewhere in slightly above the GTX 650ti/HD7770s and below the GTX650ti Boost in the GPU pecking order.