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Graphics Card Comparison Table

mr optimistic

mr optimistic

mr optimistic

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Joined
30 Apr 2006
Posts
54
Can anyone point me to a reliable site for comparing graphics cards ? I have an old dual core E6400 and 9800gt set up and have a hankering to get a bit more up to date ! Need a pretty short card to fit the case (less than 240mm) but can't figure out what is best value for money in sub-£150 range being realistic about system constraints.
 
Pairing any half decent modern graphics card with an e6400 is a waste of time.

You have 2 options...

1. Keep your current pc but replace both the CPU/graphics card and also add another 2gb ram. I'd recommend a q6600 cpu which can be got cheaply second hand and pair it with a 7770 graphics card. This could be done for 150 pounds or less.

2. Build a new pc from scratch
 
Rub salt in the wound why don't you ! Domestic issues require caution. Thanks for the link. Must update profile, now have 9800GT card and 6GB of RAM, though I have no wish to brag obviously. Presumably some sort of graphic card upgrade would give an improvement ?
 
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I would definitely grab a cheap second hand q6600 and 4gb more ram then get the best graphics card your budget will allow for.
 
mr optimistic said:
Rub salt in the wound why don't you ! Domestic issues require caution. Thanks for the link. Must update profile, now have 9800GT card and 6GB of RAM, though I have no wish to brag obviously. Presumably some sort of graphic card upgrade would give an improvement ?
Click to expand...

With a limited budget I definitely think that buying used components is the way to go. I agree with the others that your CPU (and therefore the rest of the system) will hold a new GPU back. In recent years I've bought some pretty decent stuff on the MM, although you won't be able to access it yet. Nevertheless there are other places to buy used components of course.

I'm still running a Q9450, 8gb DDR2 and a GTX260 all bought used around 3 or 4 years ago and they served me well. I'm in a similar position to you in that I want to upgrade the GPU but it will likely trigger me to upgrade the whole lot at some point.

Given a limited budget I'd agree that looking for a used Q6600 and some extra RAM would be a good stop-gap until you're able to upgrade the whole unit. This should be enough to allow a fairly decent mid range card to not be bottlenecked much. The Q6600 was a fantastic CPU in its day and still pretty decent.
 
To answer your original question about a comparison table, Tomshardware produces a monthly-ish "recommended GPU for set budgets" article, and the last page is a comparison table of most GPUs:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32760-7.html
It's obviously open to debate, but I find this useful to give a broad overview, then I tend to use reviews or Anandtech's Bench tool to compare two models once I've got it narrowed down:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/372 (more older cards)
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU13/583 (newest version)
 
Thanks everyone, and I'll check the comparison tables too. Was looking at the MSI HD 7850 as someone was good enough to link. Problem is that a new card is a stealth operation: a replacement cpu/cooler operation tends to get noticed. Anyway, thanks for your help will check out second hand cpu's.
 
mr optimistic said:
Thanks everyone, and I'll check the comparison tables too. Was looking at the MSI HD 7850 as someone was good enough to link. Problem is that a new card is a stealth operation: a replacement cpu/cooler operation tends to get noticed. Anyway, thanks for your help will check out second hand cpu's.
Click to expand...
You current CPU would bottleneck even your 9800GT in some games! (I have a E5200 overclocked to 4.25GHz bottlenecking my 9800GTX+ so I know. Also I use to run my 5850 with my old Q6600 quad-cores overclocked to 3.60GHz in the pass, and my 5850 was getting bottlenecked.

If you want pair a 7850 (around 40% faster than the 5850) with E6400 (less than half the speed of my Q6600 at 3.60GHz, the result ain't gonna be pretty.

People are not trying to "pub salt in wound", but to state the fact as it is (despite the truth is kinda ugly and most likely not something you want to hear). They are trying to spare you from blowing £130 or above on a graphic card and then only to find out the frame rate is barely higher than the 9800GT, if at all.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
You current CPU would bottleneck even your 9800GT in some games! (I have a E5200 overclocked to 4.25GHz bottlenecking my 9800GTX+ so I know. Also I use to run my 5850 with my old Q6600 quad-cores overclocked to 3.60GHz in the pass, and my 5850 was getting bottlenecked.

If you want pair a 7850 (around 40% faster than the 5850) with E6400 (less than half the speed of my Q6600 at 3.60GHz, the result ain't gonna be pretty.

People are not trying to "pub salt in wound", but to state the fact as it is (despite the truth is kinda ugly and most likely not something you want to hear). They are trying to spare you from blowing £130 or above on a graphic card and then only to find out the frame rate is barely higher than the 9800GT, if at all.
Click to expand...

+1
 
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