What is considered as a cheap but decent graphics card.

Gooey0037

Hi i'm 15 and i'm looking for as the title suggests a cheap but decent graphics card for my new pc is there any recommendations ?

cozumel

Hi Gooey0037,

You forgot the all important imformation.

What is your budget?
What do you want to use card for (gaming or what)?
Is it for the system spec in your profile?

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Tipstaff

I'm going to cheat, and just reprint a recent post I made, which goes something like this:

"9600GT minimum I'd say. If you can get an 8800GT/GTS, get it instead as it has 2x more stream processors (meaning better performance), but ONLY if it's cheaper than a 9800GT. If the 9800GT is cheaper, get it because it is the same chip, just smaller, and with higher clock rate. After that it's the GTS250, which by design is simply just a re branded 9800GTX+, and that beats every other card mentioned.

U.S. price wise you can usually get a 9600GT for about $80-95, a 9800GT for about $95-120, and up from that the GTS250 would cost you about $130-150. The price differences depend on manufacturer, rebates, and clock rates (such as reference clocks vs superclocked or OC'd versions of cards)."

BTW, you can find those cards I listed for even less money, it just takes a bit of looking, and a bit of luck to find them.

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Gooey0037

Ok yep its for the system in my spec and i wanted it for light gaming 4-5 hours max a day and i wanted to spend about £50-£60

Tipstaff

I would go with the 9600GT then unless you can get one of the 9800GTs. Sorry I can't help on finding a place over there for you to buy from (I'll leave that to our UK members).

If you are hard up on cash, a couple other cards to look at would be the 8600GTS, or the 9500GT. They're pretty much the same card, but the 8600GTS is a little faster overall. Whatever you do, though, make sure to buy the 512MB or 1GB versions. The 256MB one drags the performance of the card down. Just realize that overall the 9600GT can be 2x faster than either of those 2 cards. This is why I recommend the 9600GT as the minimum, because you get 2x the performance for $20 (at most) more.

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cozumel

Basically, what Tipstaff said.

Here is the XFX 9600GT at £60.90. The 8800GT and 250s are way outside your budget.

I know this is an nvidia thread but you may also want to consider an ATI solution. The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850, I believe, would easily outperform the 9600GT and comes in at £74.99 if you can save another £15.

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kris23

the 9600GT isnt a good card anymore...

good budget cards are all in the ATI group as nvidia has yet to get anything good out....

go with a 4670 as it can equal to outperform the 9600GT at a lower pricepoint....

if you can find it, a 4770 is also a good choice as well as it outperforms a 9800GT for less...

as your system doesnt support SLI i dont think using an ATI card would be an issue

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cozumel

Here are the prices for the ATI 4670's and 4770's

The 4670's are well within your price range of £50-60 whilst the 4770's are priced similar to the 4850 (but I think, but could be wrong, that the 4850 is the better card)

So for your specified price range it seems to be a choice between the 9600GT and Radeon HD 4670 with the 4670 fractionally the cheaper of the two

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cozumel

And some DriverHeaven Reviews for you to browse through for both Nvidia and ATI. Disregard the prices in the reviews as they have tended to drop. Personally, if I was in the market for a graphics card right now, I would go with an ATI as, from everything I have read, they tend to offer more 'bang for buck'. Try and read some other reviews from DH and other sites and look at feedback posted by the component users.

PNY 9400 GT // Gigabyte 9600 GT Graphics Cards - 27th Apr 2009

ATI Budget Graphics Overview - 9th Mar 2009

XFX Radeon HD 4650 1GB - 10th Feb 2009

Inno3D 9600 GSO, BFG 9600 GT & BFG 8800 GT - 25th Jul 2008

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adamosmaki

Lowest card that you must get for gaming is an ATI 4670 for about 55-60
After that is nvidia 9600gt which is a bit faster but about $10 more expensive
If your budget allow you to get to 80-90 you can look for ATi 4770 , Ati 4830 or nvidia 9800gt ( 4770 is the fastest not by much though and currently there are availability problems so if you cant find it and you find one of the other 2 cards get one of those )
Ati 4850 is also a good option for around 100

kris23

i consider GPUs $100 or less to be cheap so that includes.....

HD 4850........(no Nvidia alternative below $100) GTS 250
HD 4830........9800GT, 8800GT
HD 4770........9800GT, 8800GT
HD 4670........9600GT
HD 4650........9500GT

all other cards below this are generally worthless.......

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Bolletje

9800GT doesn't always has a 55 nm chip.

Also: don't get tricked by the 1GB scheme. You don't really need it, because the high amount of memory is worthless on low-end cards.

9600GT is still better than a HD4670.

You can also look for used cards. Many people drop their 9600GT's and 8800GT's because they want a HD48xx or something like that.

Or get an 9500GT and overclock it all the way

RE III - Frankie

Save some cashup and go for a GTX285 like me. You get PhysX which is why I'm getting it. - gooey

tootall82103

Because you need a GTX285 to get physx
My GTX275 has Physx.
My 8800gt has Physx.

It's all in the drivers and depends on the hardware of the graphics cards.
8 series and up support Physx as long as it isnt the low end series of the card. ie: 8600gt and up, 9500gt and up, gt220 and up.

I'd scope out a GT240. I just picked up a 512mb GDDR5 version to use for a secondary monitor for $80usd. Not sure what that equals out to over there. This is not as powerful as say a 9800/8800gt but it uses 40nm and doesn't require a 6 pin power adapter. I like the build in HDMI 1.3a also.

RE III - Frankie

I changed my mind and am pairing two 5850's together and I expect them to perform better than two 4870's together and at 400au each it's a good price performance combination I think personally.