TSGK Clan Forum

The Borg_TSGK · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 11:40 Post subject: Graphics card

At the moment i have a internal motherboard/graphics card which uses my 3gb memory.
I'm thinking of replacing this with either
Nvidia 9500GT for £44
or
Geforce GT220 for £59

Both have 1gb of internal memory

£60 is max want i want to spend unless you guys can tell me of something better and then i could go a few quid more.

Please put your thinking caps on and make any suggestions. Also a link if you find one for a good price

TIA

Current internal graphics card is a radeon hd2400

Zog Ecosse · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:39 Post subject:

This is the best 220 I can find and is near as damn it £60.
It will use all the memory up to the 4Gb limit if you are using a 32 bit
operating system given you have 3Gb installed.

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/nVIDIA+GeForce+GT220/GAINWARD+GeForce%C2%AE+GT220+1024MB+?productId=38330

or for £6 more you can get the faster 240GT

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/nVIDIA+GT+240+Series/PALIT+NVIDIA+GEFORCE+GT+240+1GB+%2Fw+HDMI+?productId=38705

or this one which is under budget and factory overclocked

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-Gigabyte-GT-220-OC-1600MHz-GDDR3-GPU-720MHz-Shader-1566MHz-48-Cores-D-Sub-DL-DVI-I-HDMI

ps remember the VAT goes up 2.5% on the first of January

StonedCabbage · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 13:51 Post subject:

Growling_Mad_Scientist · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 17:02 Post subject:

Borg, if u want a cheap videocard right now, any of those are bad choice, considering their price and performance.

Ati HD4670 has better performance, and is cheaper.

U might want consider the GT240 that Zog mentioned if u think the extra money is worth the the few fps more.

GT240 review:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Axle/GeForce_GT_240/7.html

HD4670 Review:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4670/6.html

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/ATI+Radeon+4000+Series/Gigabyte+ATI+Radeon+HD+4670+1024MB+GDDR3+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=39039

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/ATI+Radeon+4000+Series/Asus+ATI+Radeon+HD+4670+512MB+GDDR3+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=37473

I tested one those Gigabyte, from a friend of mine, and it was the 512mb.
Runed hl2dm and CSS all maxed up, with 4xAA, 16xAF at 1920x1200.
Even Race Driver Grid, the card managed to run it smooth at same res, with some lowered settings.

Nvidia cards in the lower end, are kinda of a shame, they dont have the performance for the money they ask for.

But u can find some 9600GT at good price, if u do so, i would recomend the 9600GT and nothing else.

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/nVIDIA+GeForce+9+Series/GAINWARD+9600GT+512MB+?productId=38165

The Borg_TSGK · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 18:24 Post subject:

I can never get my head around all these figures

Why would a card with 512mb be better than a card with 1gb?

Zog Ecosse · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 19:59 Post subject:

Like myself, do you watch the pennies?
I know you ran a 7600 for a while (as did I) and I upgraded to a BFG 9800 factory overclocked. I also have a i7 running a 3.3ghz. which is cost me £500 less than the extreem vesion of than the chip. Laughing

(ty Dav)
I am not going to upgrade my gfx card until DX 11 comes out.
At the end of the day there is one card there tharts got a 5 year warranty.
My bfg has a lifetime warranty. Next month it will be yesterdays tecnology but a least if it goes tits up, you got comeback.
£60 is a good interim budget to get you up and running in the short term.
Look at the spec of the games you want to play and look at the spec DM2 runs on and then make your choice.

Growling_Mad_Scientist · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 20:33 Post subject:

Zog Ecosse · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 22:00 Post subject:

Ha we cross sticks agian Laughing

No, its not a bog standard 9800, its factory oc 1Gb.
It maxes out at 300 fps and rarely drops below 250 on a decent server unless its full and I have a severe ping penalty.
In addition to this you have to look a the motherbaord and what the pcie slot can do.
You have also missed the point - the budget. Also, under no circumstances, do you want to use system memory.
I cheapest 512k 9800 I could find was £75 otherwise I would have recomended it.. That should say a lot about the card and what the 2xx series is, where it owes its (clone) pedigre too.

The Borg_TSGK · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 22:10 Post subject:

I looked at the 9600gt but it says its needs a pci express 2.0 slot
the m/b i have is a
ConRoe1333-D667 R3.0

I i believe this is only a pci express 1.0 slot so i assume this card would be no good for me??????????????

The HD4670 is also pci express 2

Can you check my m/b specs and recommend what would be best (hopefully and confused)

Growling_Mad_Scientist · Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 22:56 Post subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

"PCIe 2.0 motherboard slots are backward compatible with PCIe v1.x. PCIe 2.0 cards have good backward compatibility,
new PCIe 2.0 graphics cards are compatible with PCIe 1.1 motherboards, meaning that they will run on them using the available bandwidth of PCI Express 1.1.
Overall, graphic cards or motherboards designed for v 2.0 will be able to work with the other being v 1.1 or v 1.0."

You shouldnt have problems puting a 9600GT or HD4670 in that motherboard.

The Borg_TSGK · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:14 Post subject:

Thanks for all your help
Have a 9600GT 512mb on its way though nearly got the 1mb untill my wallet kicked me

Shimmy_TSGK · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:25 Post subject:

Lawitz · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 15:25 Post subject:

when would you recommend me to get a new system?
right now I have:
intel 6400 (could be overclocked to 3ghz, never got round to do it (never overclocked before))
8800gts 640mb (still runs everything, not highest but ok)
2gb ram (sometimes I hit more than 2gb usage, with windows 7 I´d need 4 at least)
the only game I´m looking forward to right now would be bioshock 2, not sure what else there will be that I´d play. judging by that it would be sometime next year to buy a new system. I´d like to buy when some new ground breaking stuff comes out like a new gpu or cpu line. when would that be?

Zog Ecosse · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 16:07 Post subject:

I have just upgrade from the 6400 to an i7 920. I built a rig arround the 6400 about three years ago and now it is getting a bit long in the tooth.
There were several reasons for the upgrade~
The mobo was strangling my 9800 gfx card. Rolling Eyes

It basically could not run L4d2 any sense online. Mad

VAT is increasing by 2.5% on the 1st. January. Evil or Very Mad

In some of the new games, this processor is about the minimum spec to run them. Embarassed

I am moving onto W7 shortly and want to take advantage of the 64 bit version of the OS and the increased ram capability. Wink

There was the cheaper option of the i7 8xx series using dual channel ddr2. But I was looking to build something that was a bit future proof.

Thanks to Lord Davros and better heatsink it now runs stable at 3.3Ghz.
This is 100Mhz faster than the extreem i7 9xx processor costing £500 more.

For me it was correct time to move on without feeling I had to justfy the £450 price tag.
Like yourself, I am looking forward to Bioshock 2 and do not want it to be
a big dissapointment because of midiocre kit. Your gfx card supports DX10 and I would hang fire on replacing that until we hear about DX11.

Xmeagol · Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 22:19 Post subject:

I run a HD4850 on a P45 motherboard (PCIe 1.1)

With a god damned OEM PSU

Hell yeah. Cool

Wonderbanana · Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:35 Post subject:

Lawitz · Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 15:50 Post subject:

its not recommended to toy around with psus and getting them to run at the limit or use cheap brands. once it goes bang it could also take with it your hardware. I had one psu that died kind of badly (sparks, a big BANG! sound and the safety fuse went out which left the house in the dark) and I´m thankful it wasn´t some cheap psu as there the risk is higher that it will kill your system as well.