Low - Midrange video card recommendation?

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Bonksnp

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I know everyone hates these threads, and I do plan to do some more research, but wanted to see if anyone wanted to give thier opinion. :)

I'm looking to upgrade my sons PC for his birthday but I'm not going to spend a truck load. I'm wanting to stay in the $50-$80 range (only because I don't think I can justify spending anymore on an Acer). Right now its got a NVIDIA GeForce 6100 and everyone knows how awesome onboard GPUs are. :rolleyes: He mostly plays WoW and CS (not CS:S). CS run fine but WoW is pretty choppy, especially on a 22 inch LCD.

Anyways, heres what we're working with. I have 1 PCI Express x1 and 1 PCI Express x16 slot(s) available. Any opinions are appreciated. :)

sysinfo.jpg
 
what does you PSU look like? you may need to stay with the 4670.
 
daytripper67mi said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102822
that would play almost anything for $75 after rebate


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814140095
this isn't bad mid range for $55 after rebate

the 4830 is really the best card for the 22inch monitor.
Click to expand...

^ This.

Honestly though, with that processor and that amount of ram (especially on Vista) WoW isn't going to run very well regardless of the video card. WoW: Wrath of the Lich King gobbles memory like no tomorrow.
 
Yea, most PSU's onboard aren't enough for PCI-E Video Cards... or don't have the connections.

4670 isn't bad though, and runs off bus power.

I was surprised when I opened up my brothers Gateway... was a X2 4200 and actually had a PCI-E 6-pin power sitting right there... 9600GT barely fit too! But ran fine till the motherboard died and we replaced it with an Asus board, had to swap cases too cause it was BTX =/

Anyways... I tried a 4670 for a bit, it was decent enough, I was running it at 2560 x 1600 (Really temporary till my 4870x2 got back from RMA) Games like TF2 and L4D did like 20-40fps at that resolution... so I imagine at 1680 x 1050 it should be decent enough.
 
450 Watt or greater power supply recommended (550 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode)

well i guess i didn't read that close enough stay away from the 4830 unless you wanna upgrade ps too.
 
With that CPU, I don't think you'd notice much difference between the 4670 and 4830 anyway, so go with the 4670.
 
I agree with daytripper. The 4830 or 4670. Though, if you can hold off a bit you might want to wait until the 4750 and 4770 come out (supposedly soon). Those new cards would be higher than your stated price range but they will probably have an affect on the prices of the 4670 and 4830. What type of PSU are you working with? How many watts?

Go here to look at some tested wattage numbers for the two cards.
 
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The HD4670 will be a great video card for that system. It will run older games at high settings and most new games at meduim settings.
 
If you have a decent PSU w/ 6-pin, HD4830.
If not, HD4670.

I recently helped a friend with his video card purchase and I ran in the same problem.
Pre-built PCs may have shitty PSUs without 6-pin connectors so I had to go with the 4670 but its a really good performer for the price and 6-pin cable unneeded.
4670 is a great card for what it is.
 
I'm looking for a card in roughly the same pricerange (perhaps slightly more expensive) and since I don't have a burning need to upgrade the rig in question I'm waiting for the Radeon HD 4770's release later this month. This card should be significantly more powerful than anything mentioned in this thread so far without being that much more expensive - the reason the 4830 cards are falling in price rapidly is because this card is going to push them out of the market. If you can stand waiting and perhaps expanding the budget to the $100 range then this card should get you a lot more power for only a little bit more cash when it hits the streets.
 
I'd say the HD4830 for sure if your PSU can handle it. Even if you don't have the 6-pin connector, I haven't seen a card lately that doesn't come with a molex -> 6-pin adaptor.

EDIT: And sure enough, there it is in the pictures.
 
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