GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Paul Lopez49 said:Well, I see there's an extra GB available—not much of a price gap, really—so I suppose it's probably the better choice, since it's from the same series 😕 🙂

I'm hoping for an answer by tomorrow morning—if I get one—so I can just give them a call and get this whole thing sorted out 🙂

It's slightly better, mostly when you're running higher resolutions...

Picked it up 🙂 There wasn't much of a price difference, so I just paid $165 in cash. Installed it, and it seems to be working perfectly—those lines are finally gone, so it was definitely a GPU issue. I guess I'm satisfied 🙂

That’s just a whole lot of love you're showing that Radeon HD 4670, though if I were in your shoes, I might have looked over at $167 where you could have potentially snagged a used card on the local marketplace with a warranty that would have been nearly twice as fast... 🙂

Hey there,
I’ve got this old relic of a PC sitting around (it’s running a Celeron 2.0, 1GB of DDR, an ASRock P4VM800 motherboard, and I'm pretty sure that KY-280 ATX power supply is only about 180W) and I’m thinking about breathing some life back into it. I mostly just want to use it for browsing the web and messing around with Word, but I also wouldn't mind dusting off some classics like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, or Rome: Total War. Since I'm stuck with an AGP 8x slot, I was wondering what the absolute best graphics card would be that won't choke this setup... I'm looking to drop about $167 max, especially since I won't be picking up a shiny new rig for at least another year.

VGA AGP SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON hd 3450, 512MB DDR2, HDMI, DVI, HDTV
$143 - Links
I wonder if that power supply can even handle this? 😁
It probably isn't worth getting, honestly. Since the PC is pretty old, I'm not sure the CPU could even keep up with the card's full potential...
But I guess for Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, it should be more than enough. 🙂

Which one's actually better between these two: the Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB and a 256-bit GDDR3, or the HD 5670 with 1GB and a 128-bit GDDR5?

hd4850

Richard Edwards78 said:which one is better, this pair of GPUs: the VTX Radeon HD4850 512mb 256bit GDDR3 or the HD5670 1GB 128bit GDDR5?

It's obvious from the specs. That 128-bit bus on the 5670 tells you everything you need to know—it's basically just a glorified media player for movies and browsing the web.

Christian Mendoza60 said:You can see right there it says 128-bit on the 5670. That alone tells you this card is basically just for watching movies and browsing the web.

I had an Nvidia card, but honestly, I don't know much about components.

Richard Edwards78 said:I saw it, but I don't really know much about computer parts

Man, whatever, it's a 4850 no matter what!

Taylor Mitchell81 said:Hey there,
I've got this old rig lying around (Pentium 4 2.0 GHz, 1GB DDR, an ASUS P8Z77 motherboard, and I'm pretty sure the power supply is a Dell OptiPlex unit pushing maybe 180W) that I’m looking to breathe some life back into. I mostly want to use it for browsing the web and hitting up Microsoft Word, but I also have a soft spot for some retro gaming—think stuff like CoD1, Medal of Honor, or Rome: Total War. I was wondering what the absolute best graphics card would be for this setup, specifically for that AGP 8x slot it has. I’m looking to drop about $167 max on this, since I won't be picking up a shiny new PC for at least another year.

Thanks for getting back to me, though I totally messed up my specs—that processor isn't a Pentium 4 2.0, it's actually a Core 2 Duo 3.0.

Alright. I'm looking for some recommendations here.
location:Washington, D.C.
Budget: up to $267
Specs: ASUS P8Z77 motherboard—not totally sure on the exact model from 2009—Intel Pentium 4 2.80ghz, 2GB RAM, 450W PSU, one DVD burner, and an AMD Radeon HD 4350 1GB GPU.
Monitor: Acer 21.5 inch-fullhd 1920 x1080 repository
Slot: PCIe 16x
Brand: AMD, unless you guys can convince me that Nvidia is actually better.

analogcobra53 said:Alright. I'm looking for some recommendations here.
Location: Washington, D.C.
Budget: up to $267
Specs: An Asus LGA1151 motherboard—I don't recall the exact model, maybe from 2009—an Intel Pentium Dual Core E6300 2.80GHz, 2GB of RAM, a 450W power supply, a single DVD burner, and an AMD Radeon HD 4350 1GB GPU.
Monitor: Acer 21.5 inch-fullhd 1920 x1080 repository
Slot: PCIe 16x
Manufacturer: AMD—unless someone can convince me Nvidia is actually better.

And what about the power supply manufacturer? If you can find an AMD Radeon HD 4850, I suppose you should grab it; if not, for that kind of cash, there is an Nvidia gts250 out there that sits right in the same ballpark as that AMD card.

Hey everyone!

So, I'm on the hunt for a new PCI-E card. It needs to handle driving both a 22-inch LCD monitor and an HD-ready TV (1366 x 768) properly. Basically, I need a decent successor to my ancient 2600XT.

The setup: Core i7, 4GB of RAM (moving to 8GB soon), a Corsair 450W PSU, and a Gigabyte P35 DQ6 motherboard.

Budget: $300 plus a little extra if absolutely necessary.
Location: Washington, D.C.

Other details: Aside from being able to run various games—everything from FPS and RTS to Need for Speed—it also needs to handle HD video, CAD, and 3D work. This is my main rig for both work and play, after all. Ideally, I'd like something that doesn't sound like a dying rhino whenever it's playing a movie. An HDMI output is a must, though I suppose that goes without saying these days.
I'd prefer an AMD card since that's what I'm running now; I'd rather not deal with the headache of switching driver ecosystems.

Thanks a lot

EVGA GeForce GTX 260 - $383 Links.

Regarding HDMI, you can actually get that working through a DVI/HDMI adapter... though the only real headache is getting the audio over SPDIF, provided your motherboard even features a digital output in the first place! On my own P35 DQ6, for instance, I don't have one available...

Now, if you decide to pivot toward AMD, you've got some interesting paths to take. You could go with the HD5770 (vapor-x) - $420. Then there's the HD5750 XFX (Virtus)—though I'm honestly not entirely sure how quiet that cooler stays under pressure—$294, or perhaps the HD4890 XFX (Links) - $420. That last one is definitely the speed demon of the bunch, but just a heads-up, the cooler isn't exactly whisper-quiet once you put it under a heavy load...

VGA PCI-E Sapphire Radeon HD3650 LR 512MB
$106 I've got an HG listing here. Is it actually worth shelling out any cash for this old card? It's just for an aging PC hooked up to a 17" monitor.

👍 Hey everyone... I’ve been reading through almost all your posts, but I see you guys really value the specifics, so here’s the breakdown. I'm working with an HP build, and since I don't have a dedicated GPU right now, I'm looking for some advice. I'd love to pick up one of the cards being mentioned here—would any of them actually work, or am I just throwing money away if I can get something similar for less?
So, I've got all my slots open: PCI-1, PCIEx 1_1, PCIEx 1_2, and PCIEx 16...
The power supply is sitting at 350W, but if things get heavy, we can always upgrade it with a new unit from something like Corsair or EVGA...
Of course, I’d love to run some decent games, but hey, if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. My main goal is just to have an image on my Samsung SyM T220HD while a movie plays on a 50-inch Pioneer plasma in the other room—that way, while I'm gaming, my wife can relax with a film... that's the little thing that's bugging me. Looking for your blessing on this before I head back to my small town in the Midwest... thanks in advance! 👍

The HD 4890 is definitely a step up from the HD 5770, and you can grab it for about the same price 🙂. Since the tasks you mentioned are pretty heavy, I wouldn't suggest going anything lower than an HD 4890...

You'll probably need to swap out your power supply too, since this card is quite a bit hungrier for wattage, like:

I've got an old rig running an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500/x1050Series 256 MB AGP, an Intel Celeron at 1.41GHz, 1GB of DDR400 RAM, and a 400W power supply. With this current card, I can't even get Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to run because it lacks DirectX Shader Model 3.0 support. Is it actually worth just swapping out the GPU, or should I be looking at replacing the processor and adding more memory as well?