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Best £25 graphics card?

Im thinking a gt 520 might be better if i plan to use it with linux, although people go on about the gt 430, its too much and if im not gaming i can't see how it's any better for a media centre?
 
Jay794 said:
...you can buy a graphics card for £25? really? wouldn't that struggle just to run windows lol
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Something like the HD 5450 or HD 6450 isn't a particularly powerful card compared to the more mainstream cards and they really aren't any good at playing modern games.

However, they aren't useless - these card will happily power all of Windows 7's aero features and can even smoothly playback 1080p videos (including Blu-rays).

To put their performance in context with modern onboard graphics - the HD 5450 is roughly as fast as an Intel HD 3000 graphics core found on the Sandy Bridge i5 2500K and i7 2600K/2700K.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Something like the HD 5450 or HD 6450 isn't a particularly powerful card compared to the more mainstream cards and they really aren't any good at playing modern games.

However, they aren't useless - these card will happily power all of Windows 7's aero features and can even smoothly playback 1080p videos (including Blu-rays).

To put their performance in context with modern onboard graphics - the HD 5450 is roughly as fast as an Intel HD 3000 graphics core found on the Sandy Bridge i5 2500K and i7 2600K/2700K.
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All manufacturers tend to cut corners with low-end cards as that's where the bulk of sales numbers are. Things like obscure halving of memory bandwidth and dodgy display quality (especially on secondary outputs). It's somewhat less prominent now than it used to be in the days of the infamous Geforce FX 5200 though.
 
I bought a couple of 6450s for my LAN party recently to make up the numbers and they run everything well (UT3, L4D2, Grid).

Really pleased for the money :)
 
sr4470 said:
All manufacturers tend to cut corners with low-end cards as that's where the bulk of sales numbers are. Things like obscure halving of memory bandwidth and dodgy display quality (especially on secondary outputs). It's somewhat less prominent now than it used to be in the days of the infamous Geforce FX 5200 though.
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Yea, it is very true that they do pull some tricks on the lower end parts - one common one on even current gen low-end parts is using GDDR3 VRAM instead of the standard GDDR5. This certainly effects performance a fair bit as the memory bandwidth is significantly reduced.

However, even with this accounted for these 5450 and 6450 GDDR3 cards are still pretty decent if you don't need much more from a graphics card than the ability to display standard desktop stuff, decode 1080p videos smoothly, a bit of low-end gaming and all while being quiet, cheap and using little power.

As for the problem with secondary display outputs - I haven't experienced this myself with these cards (at least not recent ones), but the Digital outputs all seem to work as well as a high-end card of the same generation.
 
Orcvader said:
Personally I find AMD cards to be a lot better quality wise, low end Nvidia cards are pretty poor and "blocky" to me. There's also a review comparing how well the low end cards perform over here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hqv-2-radeon-geforce,2844-10.html
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Apart from decent upscaling, most post processing stuff will often reduce detail, especially on hd material, you should never need or want things like noise reduction and edge enhancement, too much post processing give a plastic look, i had to turn all of it off on someones computer recently, compared to the natural nvidia image i am used to it looked horrible.
 
How do these suggestions compare to an old 8800GS?
I find the 8800GS is a bit noisy so would like something quieter but it needs to perform at least on par. Dont mind AMD or Nvidia.
 
Orcvader said:
The 6570 should be similiar performance to your 8800GS.
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Just done some research.
8800GS is about 40-50% more powerful :(

I'm looking for a cheap solution as the 8800GS is noisy but I cant have any less power because the machine is used for games like command & conquer when friends come round etc
 
no_1_dave said:
Just done some research.
8800GS is about 40-50% more powerful :(

I'm looking for a cheap solution as the 8800GS is noisy but I cant have any less power because the machine is used for games like command & conquer when friends come round etc
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I think you're looking at £70 territory (brand new) to equal or beat your old 8800 card, which means you may as well up it to the 6850 and spend a few quid more. Mind you, perhaps the better option would be second hand; something like a 5770 might be worth a look. :)
 
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