Recommend a good graphics card on a budget of 125-175 euro

B0jangles

I'm in the market for a new graphics card at the moment but it has been donkey's years since I bought the last one, so I am completely out of the loop about what to look out for.

Situation is I have a new factory build PC with ok specs (3.9ghz/8gb ram/MB graphics interface PCe 3.0) but it only has onboard graphics and I want to upgrade to be able to run games at reasonably high settings.
I've been looking at these cards as possibilities:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Radeon-NITRO-Graphics-11257-02-20G/dp/B01J1M4HDS
Looks ok, but the next step up is a lot more powerful:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-11256-00-20G-Radeon-Polaris-Graphics/dp/B01MCQPXIW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1485174432&sr=8-3&keywords=sapphire+rx470
But on the other hands is a bit over-budget...

Basically I'm looking for recommendations for cards you think are the best balance between performance and price.

All help welcome!

edit: I did check the charter and the first few pages for similar threads so apologies if there is already a thread for this kind of question that I've missed.

justsomebloke

What machine is it and what sort of Power Supply is in the machine?

B0jangles

Can't get full specs right now but its the motherboard is a gigabyte f2a78m-hd2, processor is amd a6-6400k APU dual core 3.9ghz and the power suppy is 500w.

RossieMan

That CPU is so weak any decent graphics card will bottleneck.

B0jangles

Cheers, but I was never expecting to end up with a super-fast gaming rig, I'm just looking for a little advice on a card that'll work well with what I have right now.

Digital Solitude

What brand is the PSU? Wouldn't put anything more than a 1050Ti on a cheap PSU

K.O.Kiki

Your current CPU would bottleneck an RX470, so instead I would suggest a CPU+GPU upgrade:

AMD Athlon X4 845 ~€60
RX 460 2Gb ~€105*
+p&p

*you could get a 4Gb model for €120, but the VRAM is only helpful in DOOM and at that price, might as well stretch to a 1050Ti

You can skip the CPU upgrade if you want to save for future, just know that it will be a bottleneck.

Digital Solitude

Jesus an 865 is worth upgrading to? Says a lot

B0jangles

Lads I really do appreciate the input, but there is a budget in play here; we just bought this machine, I'm not going to replace half of the internals 3 days later. I just want recommendations for a card I can run with what I currently have.

Digital Solitude

460 is probably the safest bet imo

B0jangles

Digital Solitude wrote: »

460 is probably the safest bet imo

Great, thank you for the advice!

TerrorFirmer

B0jangles wrote: »

Cheers, but I was never expecting to end up with a super-fast gaming rig, I'm just looking for a little advice on a card that'll work well with what I have right now.

That FM2 cpu will be a massive bottleneck to even entry level graphics cards.

Upgrading to an RX460 will be rather pointless as in the latest games, you will be hard CPU limited to low FPS no matter what the settings.

Realistically, a 2nd hand a6-6400K machine will be worth about €50-100. A 2nd hand 2nd gen+ i5 from Ebay will be 3x as powerful and cost about €150.

I would personally advise starting afresh with a 2nd hand or new PC.

Your current PC, even with a higher end card, will only run the latest games at low settings, and some games (like BF1) will be entirely unplayable no matter what card you ad.

FM2 socket - even if you chose the fastest FM2 cpu to upgrade to -is hopelessly outdated and slow. It's not a platform designed for modern gaming, at all.

B0jangles

I'm not looking to play the latest games, I'll be happy to run something like Crysis on decent settings. Do you really think it is realistic for someone on a budget to scrap a 3 day old PC and just buy a new one? I get that what I have is not the best but come on...

Bottom line: I have what I have, I'm here looking for advice on a card that'll work with what I have.

kyeev

Sorry OP.
The lads on here are gone graphics card blind.
They can only see upgrades as the way to go.

I've been in the situation you're in (i.e. broke).
What you want is something like the AMD Radeon HD6670.
Available on Ebay at the moment for 8 euros (still bidding though).

I have a piece of crap computer I picked up for nowt.
I think its an optiplex 780 with core duo chip and 4gb RAM.
I stuck the Radeon HD6670 in it and it runs any game up until about 2013 at max graphics e.g. Mass Effect 3 (2012) runs perfectly
Fair enough I have to reduce the detail for newer games but just to give an example, it ran No Mans Sky no problem, runs a reduced Fall Out 4 etc.

So I would buy something similar to the HD6670 if I were you.
And you shouldn't pay more than 25-30 euro for it I reckon.

B0jangles

That's an eye-opener, thank you! I think we'll definitely be looking at older/cheaper cards in that case; no point putting in something that isn't going to be fully used.

kyeev

B0jangles wrote: »

I've been looking at these cards as possibilities:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Radeon-NITRO-Graphics-11257-02-20G/dp/B01J1M4HDS
Looks ok, but the next step up is a lot more powerful:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-11256-00-20G-Radeon-Polaris-Graphics/dp/B01MCQPXIW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1485174432&sr=8-3&keywords=sapphire+rx470
But on the other hands is a bit over-budget...

Just looked at your links. Jaysus, you're not as broke as I was then, if you're going to drop £130+ plus!

B0jangles

kyeev wrote: »

Just looked at your links. Jaysus, you're not as broke as I was then, if you're going to drop £130+ plus!

Heh, no not totally skint (yet) but definitely not really to drop 200+ on replacement parts for a 3 day old PC on top of the cost of a new card!

TerrorFirmer

B0jangles wrote: »

I'm not looking to play the latest games, I'll be happy to run something like Crysis on decent settings. Do you really think it is realistic for someone on a budget to scrap a 3 day old PC and just buy a new one? I get that what I have is not the best but come on...

Bottom line: I have what I have, I'm here looking for advice on a card that'll work with what I have.

If it's a 3 day old PC and you bought it with gaming in mind, the salesman might as well have bent you over the counter and given you a good seeing too.

No-one here is out to get you, or your PC. But the bottom line is, as gaming PCs go, your one would be the absolute bottom of the barrel and then some.

Sorry OP.
The lads on here are gone graphics card blind.
They can only see upgrades as the way to go.

I've been in the situation you're in (i.e. broke).
What you want is something like the AMD Radeon HD6670.

Grand, but the OP didn't specify what sort of games he wanted to play. The HD6670 is grand but totally incapable of playing anything recent, it's a relic of a graphics card at this point.

Minecraft, CSGO, etc fine. The latest games - not a chance, unless you're willing to accept 720 lowest settings.

the OP mentioned RX460 and RX470 cards. These would be an utter waste of time, as the CPU is too low end to really make use of them. Any AMD A4/A6/etc based PC is geared towards home use, office, movies, etc, and they do well at that. But they are not, nor where they ever designed, to be gaming PC's. A €5 i3 processor from 2009 would beat the A6 in games.

B0jangles

I didn't buy it with gaming in mind, it's a shared family machine that I'm seeing what I can do with.

I appreciate all of you even bothering to reply of course, but can you not recognise that telling me to effectively dump what I have and rebuild from scratch is a tad ridiculous?

Lu Tze

B0jangles wrote: »

Heh, no not totally skint (yet) but definitely not really to drop 200+ on replacement parts for a 3 day old PC on top of the cost of a new card!

I think this was the issue, you should have come here 4 days ago!

K.O.Kiki

Forgot about the 2nd-hand market.

OP, look at the AMD Radeon HD7870 - it's RX460 performance but for less than €80, they show up on Adverts & CEX all the time.

(p.s. not trying to be a jerk, but the A6-6400k came out in June 2013...)

TerrorFirmer

B0jangles wrote: »

I appreciate all of you even bothering to reply of course, but can you not recognise that telling me to effectively dump what I have and rebuild from scratch is a tad ridiculous?

I understand that but from a gaming POV a second hand PC for €150 would run rings around it. The A6 is simply not designed for games no was it ever designed for that purpose.

If you want to play games, a 2nd hand i5 Dell + RX460 = about €250, and would be 3x as fast as your A6-6400K with the same graphics card in modern games.

With a better graphics card the A6-6400K will play some games, but all 2016 AAA titles like BF1/Fallout 4/Infinite Warfare etc are out the window because the 6400K is simply too slow.

Some stuff like Minecraft/CSGO/similar lower end titles will run OK but the point remains that there will be a severe CPU bottleneck.

If you went to sell that A6 PC tomorrow you'd struggle to get €100 for it.

As I said, you can walk into CEX and pick up an old i3 from 2009 for €5 that would actually beat the A6-6400 in most tasks. It's that slow.

B0jangles

Are you even reading my posts at this point? My main concern is not to get a gaming rig, it is to maximise What I Have.

I get that you are an enthusiast but seriously, you're being more than a little myopic at this point.

RossieMan

you cant maximize nothing. Thats the problem.

Its not going to play games at any reasonable rates, its not designed for that purpose.

How much did you pay for your build? any chance of bringing it back and creating a build yourself?

You'll get a lot of Pc for 500. which is what i assume you probably spent.

TerrorFirmer

B0jangles wrote: »

Are you even reading my posts at this point? My main concern is not to get a gaming rig, it is to maximise What I Have.

I get that you are an enthusiast but seriously, you're being more than a little myopic at this point.

To put it simply if you want to maximise what you have, it makes little point beyond picking up a 2nd hand GTX650 for €30 or similar.

Any game that runs well on the 6400K will also run well on the GTX650. You mentioned Crysis for example - Crysis 1 and 2 will run relatively fine on the 6400K + GTX650 at high settings, Crysis 3 won't due to the CPU.

The problem with the CPU bottleneck is that in theory, an RX460 can run, say Crysis 3 at 1080p @ 60fps with settings adjusted.

The problem is, the 6400K, can only run the game at 15-20fps in some/many section no matter what graphics card or settings are used, as the CPU is too slow to keep pace.

This is why spending money on an expensive card and the cards you were first looking at is not a good idea nor will it show you any returns beyond the first €30 in value. This chart below will show you how this works in practice.

These machines are all using the same card with different CPU's at low resolution to show the effect of the processor playing Crysis 3. The 6400K isn't on this chart but it would be below the last one on the list.

In comparison, look at the i3-3220, which is more than twice as fast. These machines can be picked up on Ebay for around €70-80.

This is why it is difficult to 'maximise' what you have - as someone said above there's very little to maximise in the first place.

Nothing to do with being an enthusiast reallly, just trying to be helpful and ensure you don't waste money.

K.O. Kiki's suggestion in his post is a good one. Upgrade the processor to the fastest FM2 socket processor for €60-70 - that will bring it up to, roughly, somewhere around the level of the X4 965 in the chart below which is a massive jump for small money.

Then get yourself an RX460 for €110 new or a 2nd hand GTX750/750Ti for €70 and you're set witha fairly balanced machine.

If you resolutely do not want to change the processor, then my personal advice would be to just pick up a GTX650 for €30 and call it a day because anything faster will not really show any returns in the overwhelming majority of games.

B0jangles

^^^ Thank you very much, that's a really informative and helpful post ^^^

Serephucus

The big take-away here: Whenever you're buying a machine next - whether that's next year, or ten years down the line - Come here and ask before spending any money, and we'll do the best we can for you.

Just a curiosity: Would you be open to returning the machine? Depending on how much you paid for it, and with the graphics card budget thrown in, odds are we could spec you a very nice machine. Pretty sure shops have to take goods back up to two weeks from date of purchase.

B0jangles

Yeah, that seems like a good idea in hindsight Also I didn't buy it myself, it was a family purchase and it was an online buy so we'd be on the hook for the return postage unfortunately

Serephucus

Good point RE shipping. Look, I realise it's a hassle, but it might be interesting to think about. If you stick up your total budget (PC cost + any GPU money), we can take into account shipping costs for the old system, and at least give you an idea of what you might be able to get. If you think you might be willing to do it.

B0jangles

Really, genuinely appreciate the help; I can't get the info at the moment since I can't get access to the returns policy costs and total cost of machine til later but I'll dig into it this evening and see what the options are

K.O.Kiki

Or swap in a new FM2+ CPU without telling anyone