low watt sensible performance card?

[Skree]

in short, are there any? i'm not after super high performance but i want to play some racing games. mega detail doesn't bother me that much

must be a small card - some of the latest pci-e cards would fill the case it's going in. MUST above all else be easy on the power hunger, it's for a compact rig and i don't have space for a large psu

budget up to about 100 pounds (my pound key decided not to work today) for the right card but i'd want pretty high performance for that much cash

 

[Cleeecooo]

6850 is pretty low on the power consumption. How low exactly do you want? something that can take power just from the mobo?

 

[chaotic_uk]

5850 or 5830 ?

 

[cmndr_andi]

6850 is pretty low on the power consumption. How low exactly do you want? something that can take power just from the mobo?

+1 Great performing card and really efficient.

However, it is a fair bit more than £100 (cheapest one on OCUK right now is £144).

Sticking strictly to the budget, I would have a look at the HD 5770. This card uses slighly less power than the 6850, but is not nearly as powerful.

You can also get a single slot version of this card for £5 more (though expect the fan to be louder).

In terms of performance cards £108 will buy you the excellent HD 5850 this week. This is really powerful card for the money, but it isn't particularly small and does use a fair but more power than the HD 5770. However, if it will fit your case and your PSU can support it then it is a winner in my book (this chart shows how it compares to the HD 5770).

 

[joxang]

6850 is best performance with low power draw atm. Needs only a single 6 pin connector, like the 5770.

Don't bother getting a 5770 if you're buying new. 5850 is a bit better than the 6850 but draws more power.

EDIT: sorry didn't see budget. Agree that 5850 is best considering that .

 

[Cleeecooo]

+1 Great performing card and really efficient.

However, it is a fair bit more than £100 (cheapest one on OCUK right now is £144).

Sticking strictly to the budget, I would have a look at the HD 5770. This card uses slighly less power than the 6850, but is not nearly as powerful.

You can also get a single slot version of this card for £5 more (though expect the fan to be louder).

In terms of performance cards £108 will buy you the excellent HD 5850 this week. This is really powerful card for the money, but it isn't particularly small and does use a fair but more power than the HD 5770. However, if it will fit your case and your PSU can support it then it is a winner in my book (this chart shows how it compares to the HD 5770).

There's a passive version of it aswell.

I was under the impression that they ere around £115ish?
Found some on google for around that

 

[Randall8686]

+ 1 for the 5850 for your application

 

[cmndr_andi]

There's a passive version of it aswell.

I was under the impression that they ere around £115ish?
Found some on google for around that

Yea, they are doing some really interesting things with the 6850. This article suggest that there may be a single slot, slot powered 6850 coming, though the price sounds high.

As for the £115 prices, I see them too - but not from anywhere I would want to deal with if the card ever decided to die.

 

[Skree]

Powered from the slot would be good but i don't know how many watts that is.. the problem is i'm going to be using the 2.5ghz gen2 i3 (35w) and a 3.5" hd plus all the other bits on either a 250w or 400w seasonic psu. the 250w would be better as it's smaller in every dimension.. if i can get away with it

do the dual slot rear exhaust type cards blow the heat out of the case? i had an arctic silencer a few years back that was supposed to but it always sucked inwards and the fan wouldn't run the other way round

I'm trying to get a pc that doesn't burn loads of power when it's just browsing, but i'm trying to replicate the computers of old where the keyboard was the computer so space is limited.. itx motherboard n such needed. cooling very limited.

the main prob is the length of the cards. they look to protrude a long way back of the pci-e slot.. i need something more like the old AGP/pci cards which ended when the socket did.

i'm happy to get a 6850 and pay the extra - isn't that almost the top end card? - if it runs quiet, doesn't burn a lot of electricity, and won't be bottlenecked by the CPU in games, give me really nice performance in games with that cpu, etc

 

[James J]

You have enough posts to use the members market so if I was you I'd probably get a second hand 5770 for around £50 or a second hand 6850 for around your budget price if your lucky enough to see one.

 

[bhavv]

+1 for the 6850. Only needs a single power connector.

The 5850 is great as well, but it uses more power. 6850 is the most powerful card you can get that only needs 1 connector.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Powered from the slot would be good but i don't know how many watts that is.. the problem is i'm going to be using the 2.5ghz gen2 i3 (35w) and a 3.5" hd plus all the other bits on either a 250w or 400w seasonic psu. the 250w would be better as it's smaller in every dimension.. if i can get away with it

The PCIE slot can provide 75W on it's own. So if you see a slot-only powered card then that is maximum power it can draw. Howevever, that 6850 looks like it may be one of the many cool, non-standard graphics cards that don't reach the UK, which is a shame. It also looks like it will not be cheap.

do the dual slot rear exhaust type cards blow the heat out of the case? i had an arctic silencer a few years back that was supposed to but it always sucked inwards and the fan wouldn't run the other way round

Aye, cards with the full-cover and the fan at one end (like this) do exhaust pretty much all of the hot air out of the back. however, many of the non-reference cards (pretty much all of the cards discussed so far) will only blow a proportion of the air out the back (some of them don't blow any out the back).

i'm trying to get a pc that doesn't burn loads of power when it's just browsing, but i'm trying to replicate the computers of old where the keyboard was the computer so space is limited.. itx motherboard n such needed. cooling very limited.

to be honest, most cards these days limit there power rather well when idling. looking at these charts the 5770 does this particularly well, the GTX 550 Ti also seems to do pretty well for this.

i'm happy to get a 6850 and pay the extra - isn't that almost the top end card? - if it runs quiet, doesn't burn a lot of electricity, and won't be bottlenecked by the CPU in games, give me really nice performance in games with that cpu, etc

Its pretty much mid-range. Looking at the above charts it can only draw a maximum of 118W (low for such a nice performing card) and when idling only uses up 19W. That compares to 164W and 25W respectively for the 5850 and 138W and 15W for the GTX 550 Ti. For the HD 5770 its maximum power usage is 108W and when idle it runs on 16W.

As for bottlenecking in games, with a dual core sandy bridge i'm pretty sure that your CPU won't limit you if you use these level of graphics cards.

 

[Skree]

hmm... even a 5770 would push a 250w psu if i hammered it

looks like my case might have to be a touch bigger than i thought lol all these cards look huge in their pics (about what size are they?). did look at the 6870s nice nice card but scared of the heat output into my case if the exhaust bit of the cooler isn't great