Graphics card help

[Nullifidian]

I figured this would be the best forum to post a request like this in.

I'm not gonna bother you with the long story, so short story short:
I need an affordable/low budget graphics card with both VGA/D-Sub and HDMI slots that isn't a downgrade to an NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT in specs.
My current 8500 GT doesn't have a VGA slot and I really need that for the 2 monitors that I have.

Any graphics card you guys can reccommend?
My budget is really low so the cheaper the better.

[Reach]

What else are you looking to do with the card? The 8500 GT is soooo bad by todays standards that you should really go for a significant upgrade so the new card isn't crap almost immediately.


I can recommend the radeon 5770 if you like ATI. It's a great card! It runs around $140 now I think, which might be a bit expensive, but it'll give you great quality at max resolutions and allow you to max any games you want to play on it.

If you prefer gforce cards, you could try something like the GTS 450 or the GTS 250. This is actually a cheaper card; it's running $115 on Newegg, but will run almost as well as the 5770.


If these are way too expensive I can look through some cheaper cards, but these are worth the investment in most cases. The 8800 GT is probably as weak as you'll want to go. As far as I know, it supports what you want it to do, and it'll run a LOT cheaper than the two cards I mentioned (It'll probably run you 50 bucks), but most places don't carry it in stock anymore.

[ffraxis]

What are your comp specs? depending on your mobo then you might be limited in selecting cards. also be sure to upgrade your gpa accessories (recommend eVGA Dual Low Profile Bracket, VGA, DVI, HDMI, costs 9.99 and it can cost lower depending where you buy it).

if your mobo is incompatible with your gpa, then scrap the PC, take the remaining parts that work (cooling system, power supply, memory/ram, harddrive, cd/dvd drives, sound card, and other components)

the case may be scrapped as well since you are going to make a new PC from scratch.

you can spend a whopping nice couple hundred dollars (600+) for good specs (both mobo and gpa)
or for decent specs, buy a decent mobo ( Intel 1366 Asus Sabertooth X58 for 190 or less or more) and buy either:

ATI Radeon HD 6950 series (200+ dollars)
nVidia 550+ GTX/GT series (200+ dollars)
both are roughly the same price, around 250$ ish.

if your budget does not permit it, be practical, give up video games that require expensive systems, and live uncomfortably knowing that you will be pressured into upgrading by advertisements, friends and foes alike.

also be 100% sure to be the latest nvidia card: PNY Quadro 6000 6GB GDDR5 PCI-E w/ DVI, Dual DisplayPort (no props to anyone who owns this).

[Crashfan3]

This card is almost identical to the one I use, although I paid $125 for it at the time, now it's $99.
It's labeled as a low-power budget card, and priced in that range, but I get 50+ fps in MW2 at 1600x900 and I recently clocked myself at 57 fps at the same resolution in Bulletstorm. At 1920x1080 I pulled about 51. No overclocking necessary. Can't beat that for the price.

Inputs included are HDMI 1.4a, VGA, DVI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814261062

[Reach]

Originally Posted by ffraxis

What are your comp specs? depending on your mobo then you might be limited in selecting cards. also be sure to upgrade your gpa accessories (recommend eVGA Dual Low Profile Bracket, VGA, DVI, HDMI, costs 9.99 and it can cost lower depending where you buy it).

if your mobo is incompatible with your gpa, then scrap the PC, take the remaining parts that work (cooling system, power supply, memory/ram, harddrive, cd/dvd drives, sound card, and other components)

the case may be scrapped as well since you are going to make a new PC from scratch.

you can spend a whopping nice couple hundred dollars (600+) for good specs (both mobo and gpa)
or for decent specs, buy a decent mobo ( Intel 1366 Asus Sabertooth X58 for 190 or less or more) and buy either:

ATI Radeon HD 6950 series (200+ dollars)
nVidia 550+ GTX/GT series (200+ dollars)
both are roughly the same price, around 250$ ish.

if your budget does not permit it, be practical, give up video games that require expensive systems, and live uncomfortably knowing that you will be pressured into upgrading by advertisements, friends and foes alike.

also be 100% sure to be the latest nvidia card: PNY Quadro 6000 6GB GDDR5 PCI-E w/ DVI, Dual DisplayPort (no props to anyone who owns this).

He makes a good point mentioning mobo compatibility. The 8500 is a POS by today's standards, so your mobo probably isn't even compatible with most of these cards.


You don't need to spend that much on cards though. Honestly, you can build a replacement system for much less than $600. The 6950 is overkill. I have a 6950 myself flashed to 6970 and sure, I can max everything at max reso @ low temps and high FPS, but I know people with much weaker cards that can do the same. The 5830, for example, is nearly as good in most games right now.

Try something like:

for about ~$400 you can build a system around the card myself and crash mentioned;

Processor: 3.0Ghz AMD Athlon II x2 250 Dual-Core
Ram: 4Gb G.Skill Ripjaws-X DDR3 1333 Cas 8
Video Card: GTS 250
Hard Drive: 500Gb Seagate 7200.12
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P
Power Supply: Coolermaster Extreme 500w
Case: CoolerMaster Elite 350
DVD/CD Burner: Asus 24x

If you buy right and build yourself, you can get this system for less than 400 after rebate.

If you have extra $, up to 3.2Ghz AMD Phenom II X4 840 Quad-Core and Radeon 5830 Sapphire. This card is pretty awesome and a lot better than the GTS 250 and runs at decent prices if you can get it on sale. You'll be looking at only about $500 after these upgrades!

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by Reach

What else are you looking to do with the card? The 8500 GT is soooo bad by todays standards that you should really go for a significant upgrade so the new card isn't crap almost immediately.

Mostly for design (illustrating and stuff in photoshop), but I want it to be able to run a few games decently as well. With my current specs my computer is able to run games like amnesia at medium settings perfectly fine.

Originally Posted by Reach

If these are way too expensive I can look through some cheaper cards, but these are worth the investment in most cases. The 8800 GT is probably as weak as you'll want to go. As far as I know, it supports what you want it to do, and it'll run a LOT cheaper than the two cards I mentioned (It'll probably run you 50 bucks), but most places don't carry it in stock anymore.

Originally Posted by Reach

You don't need to spend that much on cards though. Honestly, you can build a replacement system for much less than $600.

yeah my budget range is below 80 dollars lol. I know it's worth the investment but I'm really short on cash and without a steady job at the moment. For freelance illustrating I really want to be able to use my 2 monitors so I can make some money. Once I have more money I'll look into buying a better system but right now I need to use whatever means I have left.

My specs are:

Chipset:
Intel P35/G33/G31

Processor:
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

Graphics card:
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT

RAM:
2GB DDR2 (this is weird, it's supposed to have 4GB. I'll have to check into that lol)

Hard drive space:
750 GB (Divided into 2 partitions)

OS:
Stripped down Windows XP Pro

[Reach]

Originally Posted by _.Spitfire._

Mostly for design (illustrating and stuff in photoshop), but I want it to be able to run a few games decently as well. With my current specs my computer is able to run games like amnesia at medium settings perfectly fine.





yeah my budget range is below 80 dollars lol. I know it's worth the investment but I'm really short on cash and without a steady job at the moment. For freelance illustrating I really want to be able to use my 2 monitors so I can make some money. Once I have more money I'll look into buying a better system but right now I need to use whatever means I have left.

My specs are:

Chipset:
Intel P35/G33/G31

Well, that chipset can handle the GTS 250, so you can upgrade to that. It is, however, $99.99.

It'll be worth it though. There are some cheaper cards that should work too, but I'm having trouble finding them in stock online. There aren't many that have the slots you want, though.

I can find them on ebay, if you're alright buying there.

e.g: http://cgi.ebay.ca/Palit-GeForce-GTS...item4cf5ec57b1

Same card priced at your level.

[Reincarnate]

I just want to chime in that buying a cheap video card can sometimes be a really bad idea. Yeah, it's cheap in the short run, but your card will become outdated crap almost instantly (if not already), forcing you to buy another one very soon if you wish to keep up at the same level that you did before. Those costs can add up pretty quickly.

EDIT: You're better off aiming for a mid-level card that'll last you a while, imo. If you just need something to tide you over until you get a job, then that's probably fine. But a $30 difference, for instance, will probably be worth the extra investment.