Those Nvidia 3d doohickies

[slothmeister]

Hi guys,

Im just in the process of building a new system up and have been out of the loop for quite a few years now. Whilst at the gadget show live i tested out some games in 3D, and im thinking that whilst a gimick, it's something that i would like to look into getting.

Now i don't have a huge budget, but is there a 3D compatible card for under £100?

Thanks

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there,

To be honest, if you only have £100 to spend on a graphics card then I wouldn't suggest going down the 3D route.

With 3D the games basically need to render the scene twice (once for each eye) so the graphics card output framerate is approximately cut in two. Hence you want a high-end card to be able to power through this and run the game at 1080p - something like a GTX 480 (with the custom gigabyte cooler) is a good option.

Remember that if you want to run 3D you need to buy a special 120Hz monitor and an Nvidia 3D vision kit as well as the graphic card.

 

[mattjd]

Any modern Nvidia card supports 3D but it wont run well on a >100 pound card.

I would say a GTX480 is probably the mininum for 3D for a decent frame rate.

 

[slothmeister]

Okay dokey, thanks for clearing that up. Off topic, but what's the best card to go for on that sort of budget

 

[cmndr_andi]

This is the fastest, best option.

If you want an Nvidia card (for whatever reason) then this is by far the best deal near £100.

Here is how these two cards perform head-to-head.

May I ask what PSU you will be using?

 

[slothmeister]

May I ask what PSU you will be using?

Your guess is as good as mine at this point, getting a case off of a mate so have no idea what it comes with, no doubt some cheapy one.

 

[Cleeecooo]

Your guess is as good as mine at this point, getting a case off of a mate so have no idea what it comes with, no doubt some cheapy one.

You could possibly get two or three 8800GTXs as they go for around £30 on the MM IIRC. They may be able to it on low?

 

[slothmeister]

off topic again, but if i was looking for a silent graphics card, whats the quickest one for £100

 

[cmndr_andi]

You can buy a Gigagbyte HD 5770 with a passive cooler for £115 if you have a look around.

You can also get a passive HD 5670 for under £100 - but the 5770 is a much more powerful card for not much extra money.

However, unless the rest of your system (CPU cooler, PSU fan, HDD, case fans) is very quiet you won't get much benefit with going with a silent GPU cooler over a quiet actively cooled GPU cooler (like the sapphire HD 5850).