I am planning on building a PC around spring to be my media player for using outdoors with my 720p projector. The main purpose is to watch DVDs and Bluray, but I might set it up sometimes and play something like Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress 2 outside on the large screen. I just want to find a cheap card as I won't be setting it up all the time. I'm looking to find someone selling something pretty cheap as most of the time it'll just be sitting in my closet. But I want it to have the ability to play a game if I want. My thoughts are either the 2600xt or 3650. I've looked around and read people's suggestions when this question has been asked before and most say go for the 3650. But why? Going to gpureview.com to compare the 2 cards, the 2600xt seems to have the better specs (core: 800 vs. 725; memory: 1100 vs. 800; memory bandwidth: 35.2 vs. 25.6; FLOPS: 35.2 vs. 25.6; Pixel Fill: 192 vs. 174; Pixel Fill: 3200 vs. 2900; Texture Fill: 6400 vs. 5800). Every one of those specs is a bit higher on the 2600xt, so then what would the 3650 better for games? If you can't compare the specs of a video card apples to apples and pick which should be better, then what the heck are you supposed to look at?
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2600xt vs. 3650
- Thread starter htpc_user
- Start date
People probably suggested the HD 3650, because it's more recent, but both suck very hard in games and their performance isn't that far apart. I don't think those should be your choices, unless your budget is restricting you to buy one of these.
If you want good HTPC cards with very good gaming performance, you should be looking at a HD 4670 or a 9600 GT. The 9600 GT is a bit more expensive, but it's the fastest of the bunch for around $100 or less.
If you want good HTPC cards with very good gaming performance, you should be looking at a HD 4670 or a 9600 GT. The 9600 GT is a bit more expensive, but it's the fastest of the bunch for around $100 or less.
redbonefish
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2007
- Messages
- 187
the 2600xt performs better than the hd3650
I don't know how much I want to spend on a card when I might be lucky to set the projector up outdoors 5 times within a year. I really only want to do it when we can invite people over, but getting people to come over and watch a movie that many times is tough with people's schedules. Then factor in having to wait until 9:00 (during the summer) for it to get dark and not a lot of people are willing to stay and watch. And I probably will be inclined to set it up less to game. That's why I'm not willing to spend a lot on it. I'll probably be using a single-core Opteron (2.2 ghz) and 1gb of RAM unless I can find something better that's pretty cheap. So keep in mind that might bottleneck things as well. I watched my wife play Left 4 Dead the other night on her laptop with an 8400M GS at 1280 x 800 and it looked pretty good. The default options did not go to "Low" either; most were on medium. Hopefully, by the time I'm ready to buy the cards that are out now will be considered old and the prices will go down. I did think about a 9600GT. I'm just not sure I want to put that much into something that might get used so infrequently.