Who would win in a fight ...

[Yabsley]

... between a MSI Geforce 7900GS 512 and a Asus ATI Radeon HD 4350 Silent 1GB DDR2?

What I mean is which card will perform better for 1-2 year old games?

I currently have the MSI card installed in my machine at home and I bought the Asus card as a replacement for my step fathers which is very noisy. I'm wondering if I would be better off putting it in my rig and putting my old one in my step fathers (the ol' switcheroo).

It has more memory but it's passively cooled so I don't know if I'll see issues with it, if I try to play games.

I've missed out on a lot of games the last couple of years and I want to go back and play some of them; things like modern warfare 2, left 4 dead and some others.

My monitor is a 21" 1680x1050 resolution. Will the Asus card be able to handle fairly recent games at native res with medium settings?

I'm getting a bit excited about the prospect so any guidance on this would be really appreciated. I do use my home machine for media type work also; things like image and and a bit of video processing.

Thanks guys

 

[Metroid]

Certainly the 7900GS, no doubt about it.

 

[Yabsley]

Simple as that?

 

[Marine-RX179]

Yea they are built for different purpose/usage. I bet even my old 1600XT is more capable at gaming than the 4350

 

[Metroid]

Simple as that?

Yet you said 1-2 years ago, memory has become more useful with new games from 2010 onwards. The HD 4300 may gain 0 - 1 FPS if used in games that require more than 512MB. Forget about all I said, in the end I may be only confusing you. Yes the HD 4300 is crap for games, forget about it, 7900 is many times better.

 

[Yabsley]

I think deep down I suspected that might be the case. Good to have it verified though.

Would you or anyone else for that matter mind specing me a cheap replacement for my 7900gs then?

 

[Jibber55]

What do you count as 'cheap'? What your max budget?

 

[Marine-RX179]

If you don't mind 2nd hand, you can pick up 8800GT/9800GT/9800GTX+/HD4850 512MB at around £35-£45 delivered.

If you want new with warranty cover, you can pick up a XFX9800GT from OcUK for £65.

If you don't mind spending more, I would suggest getting a GTX460 768MB at under £130 (p.s. Avoid Palit GTX460, their cooler suck and has no ram sink).

But with you current card being that old, that makes be wonder what spec is you current system...if it is something like Athlon 64 Dual-core, I would say don't bother going higher than 8800GT/9800GT.

 

[oweneades]

My monitor is a 21" 1680x1050 resolution. Will the Asus card be able to handle fairly recent games at native res with medium settings?

Put quite simply...no. Low settings coupled with reduced resolution possibly but anything beyond that would be unplayable.

The 7900GS is a bit of a difficult one to place as its architecture hasn't aged very well at all (unlike the X19xx). It has a distinct lack of shader power for any recent title even at medium settings.

The following review puts things in perspective:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/18682/6
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/18682/7
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/18682/8


If you do want to play the likes of MW2 and L4D at decent settings I would reccomend getting something like a HD5670 or possibly the HD5750 (second hand 8800GT would also be a nice upgrade).

their cooler suck and has no ram sink

My Sparkle GTX460 1GB doesn't have any Ram sinks yet the memory happily churns along at 4.3ghz. The Palit card has a few problems but it's lack of Ram heatsinks isn't one of them.

 

[Yabsley]

What do you count as 'cheap'? What your max budget?

OK I'm only recently entertaining this so haven't given it much thought. If I say max budget of £70, what sort of thing might I be able to get?

My system is pretty quiet at the moment, which I like and wouldn't want to change, so can I throw this in as an extra guideline?

The rest of my system specs are:

Abit AW9D-MAX Intel 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4ghz)
Corsair 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2
OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU

I was originally going to wait to upgrade the entire thing but then I had to buy a car and am subsequently paying that off. So I'm some way off being able to afford my whole new system/dream build. If I can make a couple of small upgrades in the mean time that would allow me to catch up on what I've missed at a reasonable level then that would be cool.

Thanks guys!

 

[Yabsley]

If you don't mind 2nd hand, you can pick up 8800GT/9800GT/9800GTX+/HD4850 512MB at around £35-£45 delivered.

If you want new with warranty cover, you can pick up a XFX9800GT from OcUK for £65.

If you don't mind spending more, I would suggest getting a GTX460 768MB at under £130 (p.s. Avoid Palit GTX460, their cooler suck and has no ram sink).

But with you current card being that old, that makes be wonder what spec is you current system...if it is something like Athlon 64 Dual-core, I would say don't bother going higher than 8800GT/9800GT.

I'm not adverse to second hand. Are any of the suggestions above quiet? Posted my spec above BTW. Cheers

 

[Rroff]

For £70 look for a second hand GTX260 or ATI5770 IMO or might get lucky and find a 4890.

That system would still do pretty well tho in most current games with good settings - just get a decent cooler, clock the CPU to 3gig (or more if your feeling like pushing the voltage) and stick a GTX460 in there and your laughing.

 

[Yabsley]

For £70 look for a second hand GTX260 or ATI5770 IMO or might get lucky and find a 4890.

That system would still do pretty well tho in most current games with good settings - just get a decent cooler, clock the CPU to 3gig (or more if your feeling like pushing the voltage) and stick a GTX460 in there and your laughing.

Rather than start a new thread, lil' bump of this, can anyone recommend a quiet card for under £100?

How do I get involved in the MM?

 

[oweneades]

Rather than start a new thread, lil' bump of this, can anyone recommend a quiet card for under £100?

How do I get involved in the MM?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-124-HT&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=708

Well under £100 (under £80 in fact), decent enough for moderate settings on new titles and should run cool and quiet.

To get access to MM you have to have more than 250 posts, been with the forum for over 6 months (I think - I may be wrong on this point) and enable your trust feedback.