IGP step up needed please

[John24]

Can you help I've not got a clue what to get my brov to replace his IGP. He plays sims, gta and need for speed underground on Windows 7 and an Athlon 620.

Preferably fanless. Is this one up to the job?

Thanks.

 

[Pc.robb]

what igp is it? some igp perform slightly better than low budget cards?

 

[John24]

It's a HD 4200.

 

[drunkenmaster]

HD4200 is completely pathetic as with most older IGP's(and new ones just less so). Afaik its 40shader's basically, or stream processes as they are officially called.

The card you linked will be significantly faster but realistically is about the worst card you can buy performance/price. A £50-60 next card up has significantly more speed. THe one you listed at £42 has 160 shaders,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-258-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1983

That has 480 shaders and will likely end up more than 3 times as fast. It really depends what his budget is. Another £10 on top of that one will get you a fanless one with a decent sized heatsink.

To be honest I haven't gamed on anything below an top end card in years so I can't say exactly what settings you'd get for a given card but, I think its safe to say a 480shader card will enable significantly higher settings than a 160 shader card, but still nothing like top end settings. Another £20 on top of that last one would get you a £90 6770, 800 shaders, and really not at all bad performance for some higher resolution mid setting gaming.

 

[Pc.robb]

What budget are you looking at?

 

[Dauthi]

HD4200 is completely pathetic as with most older IGP's(and new ones just less so). Afaik its 40shader's basically, or stream processes as they are officially called.

The card you linked will be significantly faster but realistically is about the worst card you can buy performance/price. A £50-60 next card up has significantly more speed. THe one you listed at £42 has 160 shaders,

+1 Upto the £50-60 mark you are paying for a PCB with video outputs.

 

[John24]

Thanks for the replys everyone, very helpfull.

HD4200 is completely pathetic as with most older IGP's(and new ones just less so). Afaik its 40shader's basically, or stream processes as they are officially called.

It plays everything listed with the settings turned down, he has some software that needs dedicated graphics ram which the IGP doesn't have though and that's the main reason for the upgrade.

So I really just want to get him something that will comfortably play the games listed with higher settings, he does most of his gameing on his xbox.

The card you linked will be significantly faster but realistically is about the worst card you can buy performance/price.

I picked a good one then ay, haha. I can get it £10 cheaper elsewhere though (unfortunatly for OcUK), does that help?

Budget wise I don't know, it sounds like the HD 6450 would be more than adequate if not the best price/performance. Power consumption and heat is a slight concern aswell, the next step up would be double the price and maybe give a bit too much spare oomph and heat to dissipate. (I know it's fanless but if it kicks out a lot then the case fans will need turning up.)

To be honest I haven't gamed on anything below an top end card in years so I can't say exactly what settings you'd get for a given card but, I think its safe to say a 480shader card will enable significantly higher settings than a 160 shader card, but still nothing like top end settings. Another £20 on top of that last one would get you a £90 6770, 800 shaders, and really not at all bad performance for some higher resolution mid setting gaming.

Yeah that's the trouble, most people don't use the low end cards for gameing so it's hard to know what they are capable of, even more so when your as clueless as me when it comes to graphics cards.

His monitor is 22" 1920x1080 btw.

 

[John24]

Well went for Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6450 1GB. Hopefully it's up to the job.

Can anyone recommend any benchmarks for doing a before and after comparison?