Hardware Best Graphics Card for £50 or less

[Prime]

I guess I'll use the best resolution for gaming which for the 9600GT it seems like it is 1024 x 768 after reading this review.

Blah, I cant find the XFX 9600GT for cheaper than £70 :/

 

[xcalibur]

Right. Would it be worth waiting and trying to save up £15 more for the 9600GT? Is there a massive performance between the 9500GT and the 9600GT?

It depends. What resolution will you be playing at?

I don't mind the resolution. What ever is best for playing on a 19" screen. My current PC is set to 1400 x 900 on a 19" inch screen which i find nice.

This graphics card will be for the new pc I'm building in college btw

Aka your best resolution = 1400x900. Don't see how that matters much though (unless you would count AA and such in the equation).

Then go and get the 9500GT if you want to play new games in medium setting and 9600GT if you want max out the sliders on all your games while playing at 1400x900 on your 19", then go with the 9600GT. 


9600GT will give you more value overall since it'll become outdated less quicker.

 

[Prime]

huh.

>_< Now I'm confused. All I want is not to break my budget of £50, Play games on 1400x900 and have them at looking good but not amazing.

 

[Taza]

Any of Asus, XFX and EVGA are good cards. I have two Asus 9600GT Silents here in two separate machines without a single problem ever.

A 9600GT or 9800GT will be what you want, but not for £50 or lower. Cards even half-decent for gaming do cost a bit more.

Overall, however, you can get a gaming system for under £500 easy.

(Two example configurations: AM2 mobo + Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 65w or Asus P5Q + E8400. The E8400 is £80 or so more expensive with massive power.)

... really, if you can wait - E8400, 2x1gb Kingston ValueRAM 800mhz, Asus P5Q, Asus 9800GT, 500GiB Seagate Barracuda SATAII, case, 500w 80plus power, Samsung Superwritemaster. Enough power to play any game today well at an affordable price.

Or if you can't, Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 65w, AM2 mobo, same ram, hdd, dvd writer and most certainly a 500w 80plus power.

 

[Scorpei]

huh.

>_< Now I'm confused. All I want is not to break my budget of £50, Play games on 1400x900 and have them at looking good but not amazing.

Right, then either go with the 9500GT and have a relativly crappy card within ur budget, or get a 9600GT and pay slightly more for something a little more futureproof which runs stuff from the current range with higher grapics (seriously, for 25 euros more go get the 9600GT

).

The 9600GT will get you everything at medium and some stuff at high. The 9500GT will stay at medium max. (

 

[Law]

huh.

>_< Now I'm confused. All I want is not to break my budget of £50, Play games on 1400x900 and have them at looking good but not amazing.

The 9500 GT should be able to max out HL2 and Team Fortress 2 with ease, I'm not sure about L4D though.

But get the 9600 GT if you want to be playing games on medium settings in half a year from now without having to buy a new card.

 

[Joe88]

nVidia ALWAYS, 100% of the time beats ATI. This is a fact and fanboys can go home and cry.

your the one who seems like the fanboy to me

im sorry but your statement is false if you even picked up any benchmark for the last 2 gen's of gfx cards you would see
ati has the best bang for buck ratio

unless nivida wants to stop ripping off their customers and price then according to ati's cards which they are starting to do
those 9500gt's and such were a lot more expensive but nvidia lowered the price to right around ati's cards (even though they are still more expensive and the ati card still beats it out)

in the end of the day also ati still has most powerful gaming gfx card on the market
so this again goes against your statement

 

[Banger]

ATI already has wonderful 3rd party drivers. They have been around for years. Saying there are none makes you a moron sir.

And those 3rd party drivers beat that of Nvidia's Normal and 3rd party drivers any day.


I am sure you are going to call me an ATI fanyboy but the fact is I prefer nvidia... That is all my computers run. And that is all they will probably will ever run.

 

[Taza]

ATI has the best cards on the market if you're into hardcore masochism.

Those 3rd party drivers have the same corruption/crashing issues these days - they were wonderful in the Radeon 9000 Series era but nowadays they aren't really better than ATI's own drivers.

Joe88: Tell me when you've managed to avert a crash with raw computing power and then come a'whining. nVidia beats ATI, and as I have said countless times - it isn't in the power, it's in the drivers.

 

[Prime]

Well I guess It's the 9600GT. Now time to find the cheapest price

Any of Asus, XFX and EVGA are good cards. I have two Asus 9600GT Silents here in two separate machines without a single problem ever.

A 9600GT or 9800GT will be what you want, but not for £50 or lower. Cards even half-decent for gaming do cost a bit more.

Overall, however, you can get a gaming system for under £500 easy.

(Two example configurations: AM2 mobo + Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 65w or Asus P5Q + E8400. The E8400 is £80 or so more expensive with massive power.)

... really, if you can wait - E8400, 2x1gb Kingston ValueRAM 800mhz, Asus P5Q, Asus 9800GT, 500GiB Seagate Barracuda SATAII, case, 500w 80plus power, Samsung Superwritemaster. Enough power to play any game today well at an affordable price.

Or if you can't, Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 65w, AM2 mobo, same ram, hdd, dvd writer and most certainly a 500w 80plus power.

Buying a while gaming PC is not a option.

 

[Banger]

I would have to second XFX also BFG, I believe they both have such a warranty that even if you fry the card while over clocking it they will replace it. Well I am not sure if they still have it but they used to.


Also I would go with at least 3 gigs if not even 4 on Taza's quick build

 

[Taza]

I doubt either of them has such an option without factory overclocking anymore.

But yeah, XFX, BFG, EVGA and Asus, especially Asus Silent series are good picks.

I've always taken Asus Silent when I can, because I build a silent computer.

@banger: Good call, but incomplete. Windows XP doesn't support more than 4gb all memory so that would leave around 3gb usable - whereas with 2gb you can use it all. So the 4gb isn't a massive upgrade.

Plus Dual Channel mode is important. And 1.5 gig memory sticks nor 3 stick channel (well, not until Core i7) doon't exist.

 

[Banger]

Well 3 for XP would be used and if he plans to game Vista would be the choice for some games with DX 10 so he can dual boot into vista when he wants to play certain gamez. That is why I said 4.


Although these graphics whoring games bore me. Being just about graphics and not enough about game play. Ashame really.

Well unless he used 64 bit XP which I would never recommend.

 

[Taza]

Yeah. So if he's staying with XP 2gb is perfectly fine, and I was counting on him wanting to do exactly that.

Also, the 9600GT is a good card - I've had a silent Asus 9600GT for months now as I mentioned, as does my brother. No problems with either of us.

 

[Joe88]

Joe88: Tell me when you've managed to avert a crash with raw computing power and then come a'whining. nVidia beats ATI, and as I have said countless times - it isn't in the power, it's in the drivers.

I couldnt tell you because my 9250 has never crashed on me besides when I tried to OC it
I will see later on when I get a 4870

if the drivers are as bad as you claim
then why hasnt there been any mention of them constantly crashes or even one crash when reviewing the cards for all popular and demanding games?

 

[notnarb]

ATI has the best cards on the market if you're into hardcore masochism.

Those 3rd party drivers have the same corruption/crashing issues these days - they were wonderful in the Radeon 9000 Series era but nowadays they aren't really better than ATI's own drivers.

Joe88: Tell me when you've managed to avert a crash with raw computing power and then come a'whining. nVidia beats ATI, and as I have said countless times - it isn't in the power, it's in the drivers.

My Omega drivers for my x1650 have only crashed on me twice in the two years I've owned them, and that was only when dualboxing World of Warcraft, which, quite frankly, my computer is not designed to dualbox. The crash could have easily been any other part of my computer, including my 300W power supply. That said, not having seen any of said driver problems (using Omega drivers which are not compatible with Vista, mind you; I never tried the official drivers), I would recommend the ATI 4670 which costs around as much as a 9600GSO (A GT should cost more), usually less, here in the states. The 4670 is a tad bit perkier than the 9600GSO and a little under a GT and uses quite a bit less power (it doesn't require external power unlike the 9600, a big plus if you don't have a power supply made for it). I would not consider myself a fanboy, I would happily purchase an Nvidia GPU if they were more bang for the buck, which they have been until ATI released the 4XXX series, but the 9 series is older then the 4 series and ATI truly outdid themselves with this recent architecture.

@OP: regardless of which brand you choose, go for an x6xx series (46x0, 9600), the extra 5-10£ is well worth the increased longevity of getting twice the card of a x5xx or x4xx series

EDIT: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon...ics,2086-7.html

 

[Daois]

I have a spare 8800GTS (320MB) sitting around here. It ran pretty much everything I threw at it, INCLUDING Crysis.. (at medium-ish), but I got a GTX 260 now.

I'd be willing to part with the 8800 if the price was right.. heh.
Only thing is how much space do you have available in your rig?... it's a big chunk of card.

 

[Prime]

I have a spare 8800GTS (320MB) sitting around here. It ran pretty much everything I threw at it, INCLUDING Crysis.. (at medium-ish), but I got a GTX 260 now.

I'd be willing to part with the 8800 if the price was right.. heh.
Only thing is how much space do you have available in your rig?... it's a big chunk of card.

Thanks but no thanks. I have my eyes set on the 9600GT.

 

[notnarb]

I have a spare 8800GTS (320MB) sitting around here. It ran pretty much everything I threw at it, INCLUDING Crysis.. (at medium-ish), but I got a GTX 260 now.

I'd be willing to part with the 8800 if the price was right.. heh.
Only thing is how much space do you have available in your rig?... it's a big chunk of card.

Thanks but no thanks. I have my eyes set on the 9600GT.

the 8800 and the 9600 are essentially the same card

 

[AshuraZro]

Save your money and get a proper card. Might not be want you want to hear, but trust me. You will be much happier doing that and it will likely save you money in the long run.

Picked up my 8800GT when it came out and only game that's made it visibly struggle is naturally Crysis (that I've ran).