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Looking for a Budget card

E

erehwon6811

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
493
I'm currently running a 8600 GTS and looking at doing a little upgrade on the cheap. I was thinking about the GTX 280 or a GTS450 off of ebay. I was mainly looking at nvidia since I heard they have better linux drivers. I'm not sure what's a good one from ati.

I'm looking for a card with some improvement over what I have, but doesn't run too much hotter. I was looking at used stuff, since I was looking at trying to get something for $50 or less if possible.

I have a Corsair TX750 power supply, so power shouldn't be a problem.
 
I looked for a long time to find an upgrade to my ATI x1950 PRO card for around $50, but just couldn't find anything suitable. My budget was a bit higher than yours, but if you do want to get a significant boost from your current setup, you might want to aim for a budget around $100. In that price range, you can get a GTX 650 which has CUDA stream processors and is built around the new Keplar architecture. I opted for the GTX 650 Ti as my budget was around $140. So far, I'm very pleased with my decision. Hope this helps.
 
Radeon 7750? It has a 55 watt TDP vs the 75 watt TDP of your current card and over double the pixel and texel rates, as well as over double the memory bandwidth.

You can get new ones for around $80.

A GTX 280 has a TDP of 236 watts. So depending on how many hours a day you are running the computer you could potentially make up the $30 in electrical bills over time. The GTX280 is faster than the 7750 on paper though. About double memory/texel and about 50% better theoretical pixel fill rates.

Not sure of real world performance of the 280 vs 7750.
 
I would pass on the GTX280, it consumes too much power compared to more recent cards.

I'd go for a GTX650, it costs more but it will be faster and more power efficient.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll avoid the 280. I didn't realize it drew that much power. I'm looking at that GTX460 and the GTS450.

I'm hoping a better card will help my performance with the Dolphin emulator. I liked playing wii games with a xbox360 controller. I also want to play skyrim, but I'm waiting for a version with all the dlc. I'll need to upgrade again by the time that comes out.
 
I just upgraded from a GTX460, but it had no problems playing Skyrim @ 1920x1200 with upgraded texture packs and most graphics settings on high.
 
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