Best GPU for £50

Boycey0211 · 8 Feb 2012 at 15:21

Mates gone and bought a £100 paperweight of a pc which he thought was an 'upgrade' and it needs a graphics card. He wants no frills but the main thing is to play Empire Total War at a reasonable framerate, not necessarily maxed out.

I'll be honest I have no idea about budget cards and im getting overwhelmed looking for him, has anyone got any reccomendations? He wants to spend no more than £50 on one

Marine-RX179 · 8 Feb 2012 at 15:33

Well, there are plenty of choice on capable gaming graphic cards if you are looking at 2nd hand for under £50. Problem is I doubt the PSU on your friend's PC would be up to it.

With that in mind, he's should probably look at a low power consumption, bus-powered card...and with a budget of £50, I would say the 6570 would be a good bet. It's around the performance of a 9600GT....but another thing to bare in mind is that Total War series are quite CPU demanding, so even with a better than onboard graphic card, the CPU might still become a limitation.

Cheapest 6570 here:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-263-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1984

Boycey0211 · 8 Feb 2012 at 16:16

all that taken into account I reckon his only option is a whole new pc

cmndr_andi · 8 Feb 2012 at 16:46

Hi there,

May I ask what the full specs of the PC are? Failing that, does the PC itself have a model number?

As marine mentions, if the main use of the system is to play Empire Total War then as well as a half-decent graphics card you really need a CPU with a lot of grunt to run it well.

Braka · 8 Feb 2012 at 22:01

100 quid?

agp or pci-e ?

Boycey0211 · 8 Feb 2012 at 22:18

luckily its pci-e, I didnt get the model number, but its a p4 3ghz with ddr2 300mhz

oh and a radeon X300!

Before it gets mentioned i've told him multiple times just not to bother and save up for one of the £400 good builds that end up on here every other day, and that ended with a new £100 pc sized paperweight, which will probably have another £50 wasted on it at this rate. Sigh. Cheers for your help anyway, just wanted to see what people would suggest for said £50

Orcvader · 8 Feb 2012 at 22:21

Boycey0211 said:
luckily its pci-e, I didnt get the model number, but its a p4 3ghz with ddr2 300mhz oh and a radeon X300!

Before it gets mentioned i've told him multiple times just not to bother and save up for one of the £400 good builds that end up on here every other day, and that ended with a new £100 pc sized paperweight, which will probably have another £50 wasted on it at this rate. Sigh. Cheers for your help anyway, just wanted to see what people would suggest for said £50

If that's the new system, don't bother upgrading the GPU. Save up some cash for a better system... your friend wasted £100 on an ancient P4 system...

Boycey0211 · 8 Feb 2012 at 22:23

Orcvader said:
If that's the new system, don't bother upgrading the GPU. Save up some cash for a better system... your friend wasted £100 on an ancient P4 system...

Yeah I know, told him that too, gonna find the nearest wall and bang my head for a bit! Bought it without even knowing the specs or asking me

cmndr_andi · 8 Feb 2012 at 22:39

Yea, that CPU is pretty poor these days, but I guess it does meet the minimum requirements of Empire Total War (2.4GHz Pentium 4), the issue may be with the graphics card to get it running as it requires 256MB of video memory - most likely the X300 will only have 128MB.

Hence the game may not run at all without a GPU upgrade.

However, getting a half-decent GPU will most probably require a PSU upgrade (the x300 is only rated at 18W at maximum power).

If the system uses standard ATX PSUs and has enough room for a graphics card with a dual-slot cooler and is as long as the width of the motherboard then he may want to consider going for a new PSU and graphics card now - both of which can then be transferred into a new, modern system when he gets some money together.

If the system uses a non-standard PSU the I would just give up on that system (try and sell it on if possible) and start again from scratch with more modern parts.

Boycey0211 · 8 Feb 2012 at 22:42

tried explaining that too, won't pay out for the PSU. You get what you pay for, and insome cases a lot less it seems...

cmndr_andi · 8 Feb 2012 at 22:49

Would he consider it if the total cost was on or around £50?

If so then he could afford this PSU (it gets a decent write up) and a second hand graphics card from the following list for £20-30:

HD 4770
HD 4830
HD 4850

8800GTX
8800GTS 512MB
8800GT
9800GT
9800GTX
9800GTX+
GTS 250

This combination would cost in total £50-60 (depending on how much the card is) and provide a massive performance increase - to the point where he can actually play modern games (albeit not too well due to the CPU). This would aslo provide him with a PSU and graphics card he can use in a future new system.

YiuKorochko · 9 Feb 2012 at 04:09

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-138-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1863

I recommend this GPU.
I bout this exact same one for my mothers media center (runs at 1920x1080 and plays BluRays and even does some light gaming).

I can't remember what the stock settings were, but with the bundled OC software, a linked Memory Clock to 1500 and Main Clock at 500-550 the Windows Graphics Score is 5.9 and Gaming Graphics Score is 6.4.

A rather awesome GPU for 60 pounds.
Funnily enough, when she asked for an upgrade to the 9500GT she already had, she just said "So long as it performs as good or better, and has an HDMI port." (connected to LED TV). After checking out the scores on the overclocked 430 for only 60 pounds, I looked back when I bought the 9500GT for 40 only a year back and say "Not going to that PC shop in Glasgow again...".

EDIT:
My my I've just looked back and read that it's a Pentium 4.
Either way, even if he's looking for a cheap build for some better than average gaming, this GPU still rocks.

Marine-RX179 · 9 Feb 2012 at 07:49

YiuKorochko said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-138-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1863

I recommend this GPU.
I bout this exact same one for my mothers media center (runs at 1920x1080 and plays BluRays and even does some light gaming).

I can't remember what the stock settings were, but with the bundled OC software, a linked Memory Clock to 1500 and Main Clock at 500-550 the Windows Graphics Score is 5.9 and Gaming Graphics Score is 6.4.

A rather awesome GPU for 60 pounds.
Funnily enough, when she asked for an upgrade to the 9500GT she already had, she just said "So long as it performs as good or better, and has an HDMI port." (connected to LED TV). After checking out the scores on the overclocked 430 for only 60 pounds, I looked back when I bought the 9500GT for 40 only a year back and say "Not going to that PC shop in Glasgow again...".

EDIT:
My my I've just looked back and read that it's a Pentium 4.
Either way, even if he's looking for a cheap build for some better than average gaming, this GPU still rocks.

The thing is...why would anyone buy GT430 for £60, when 6670 is quite a bit faster (around 50-60% faster) for the same price?

Either way, with a P4 system I say OP's friend shouldn't bother. It would had been better if it was something like the AMD Athlon single-core (with X1600XT 256MB) which I occasionally use to game at my mom's (at 1280 res and medium to low settings).

HeX · 9 Feb 2012 at 10:56

Buy 2nd hand, you can get a HD5770 for around £50.

se_vietboi · 9 Feb 2012 at 11:07

If he wanted a P4 system who could have got it for even less ><

cmndr_andi · 9 Feb 2012 at 11:08

HeX said:
Buy 2nd hand, you can get a HD5770 for around £50.

Yea, its a good card and if the PSU can take it then it is probably the best option.

However, it seems he is using a pre-built machine with a X300 - a 18W graphics card. So without checking the PSU used it would be very risky replacing this with a 108W HD 5770.

HeX · 9 Feb 2012 at 11:11

Oh man, I didn't read that this was for a P4... In that case yeah, don't buy anything. Just bang it back on ebay and shift it.

Then smack your friend upside the head and tell him to save up.

YiuKorochko · 9 Feb 2012 at 12:55

Marine-RX179 said:
The thing is...why would anyone buy GT430 for £60, when 6670 is quite a bit faster (around 50-60% faster) for the same price?

Either way, with a P4 system I say OP's friend shouldn't bother. It would had been better if it was something like the AMD Athlon single-core (with X1600XT 256MB) which I occasionally use to game at my mom's (at 1280 res and medium to low settings).

Because this GPU clocks much better than the standard 430 and gets damn good performance.

cmndr_andi · 9 Feb 2012 at 13:02

YiuKorochko said:
Because this GPU clocks much better than the standard 430 and gets damn good performance.

I'm sure it's a nice card, but I think the point Marine was making is that the HD 6670 costs around the same as that GT 430 and looking at this review it performs 70-90% faster (depending on the game) at stock speeds.

Even if you factor in a lot of overclocking, the GT 430 performance still won't get near the 6670 - and thats not even taking into account overclocking the HD 6670 (which overclock very nicely).

YiuKorochko · 9 Feb 2012 at 13:32

cmndr_andi said:
I'm sure it's a nice card, but I think the point Marine was making is that the HD 6670 costs around the same as that GT 430 and looking at this review it performs 70-90% faster (depending on the game) at stock speeds.

Even if you factor in a lot of overclocking, the GT 430 performance still won't get near the 6670 - and thats not even taking into account overclocking the HD 6670 (which overclock very nicely).

Yeah I had read that. I didn't take AMD into consideration with this particular PC since my grandfather's been working for Dodge/Chrysler/Ford and using Quadro cards more or less since they've been out, as far as my mother knows Nvidia has the better track record.

And for new parts, yeah they do. It's AMD's price cuts that keep them afloat.
"Why buy that Nvidia when an AMD costs xxx less/costs the same with higher performance?" kinda deal.

...tell your friend to wait for Kepler! At least if he doesn't like the Nvidia line-up, the AMD 7xxx will drop in price afterwards!