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Computers & Hardware => PC Hardware => Topic started by: Floydoid on August 15, 2007, 07:33:56 PM

Title: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on August 15, 2007, 07:33:56 PM
Hi all,

I'm thinking about upgrading my graphics card pretty soon... I currently have a 64 MB radeon, which is OK generally, but can be a bit sluggish on hi-res videos.  I'm not into gaming so I'm not looking for a top notch spec.

Now, I'm a bit of a cheapskate and only have a budget of about £50... so what would you good people out there recommend?
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on August 15, 2007, 07:36:52 PM
I meant to add, I have an AGP slot.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: feliscatusx2 on August 15, 2007, 08:55:55 PM
I have just ordered a Connect3d ATI 9550 AGP 256 MB RAM 4x/8x card with a heatsink and no noisy little fan.  This cost £40.88 from Amazon.  It will do what I want it to do, which does not include playing games.

Reviews have been mainly favourable, and ATI based cards tend to have superior on screen graphics performance to nVidia (the pictures on your screen look nicer).

However I can't comment further because it hasn't arrived yet, and the PC needs building up before I can try it out.

This card also comes in a 128 Mb version, there is also the 9250 card with both memory sizes which is even cheaper, but with less performance.

Might be worth a Google, or even a Scroogle.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: soms on August 15, 2007, 09:06:42 PM
With the exception of games, the Nvidia GeForce 6200 AGP was good. I had one for a nice while.

I had one made my XFX, it had a nice heatsink and no fan and had 256MB RAM. 2D graphics were crystal clear, obviously all the cards made in the last few years have hardware acceleration for DVD so that was great and other video worked great too. It could even play DirectX9 games on low to medium settings (until you insisted on hardware intensive /demanding things like anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering). That cost around £50 at the time, so probably cheaper now.

Far better than the Radeon 9250, probably not much, if any better than the 9550. You can normally find reviews with performance comparisons using Google.

Beware that there is some sort of PCI express version and cheapo "turbocache" versions which use system memory as graphics memory, merely to save money on the manufacturing and further hinder performance.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on August 16, 2007, 05:50:47 PM
I was actually looking at this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/54837

(I said I was a cheapskate)
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: roseway on August 16, 2007, 06:43:09 PM
That's a perfectly respectable card for a non-gamer.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on August 16, 2007, 06:57:44 PM
Yeah it seems to have favourable reviews... my 'gaming' is restricted to sokoban, which isn't exactly graphics hungry.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Achilles Last Stand on August 16, 2007, 11:29:22 PM
 :silly: I have not seen Sokoban since my Winsows 2.1.1. days  :no:
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on August 17, 2007, 05:43:28 AM
Did you mean windows 3.1?

BYW if you want a good version of Soko, then just ask ;)
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Achilles Last Stand on August 17, 2007, 06:01:55 AM
Did you mean windows 3.1?


Probably  ;D (well, it was a long time ago  ???)

Quote
BYW if you want a good version of Soko, then just ask ;)


I'd probably better not, for the time being anyway I have resurrected Zuma lately and keep playing when I should be doing other things (like housework  :tongue:) but I'll keep it in mind, thanks  ;D
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on August 17, 2007, 06:25:03 AM
The version of Soko I have has 3316 levels, ranging from the faciile to the downright impossible.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: roseway on August 17, 2007, 07:03:54 AM
I've been playing Sokoban for years, and I've collected all the levels I can find on the 'net. I've been through the whole lot three or four times, but as you say, some of them are still beyond me.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on August 17, 2007, 09:55:39 AM
Aah, so I'm not the only Sokoban addict out there.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on September 14, 2007, 03:40:39 PM
I was actually looking at this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/54837

(I said I was a cheapskate)

Well, said card arrived today, just installed it... will let you know in due course how it performs.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: roseway on September 14, 2007, 04:32:28 PM
I'm on the edge of my seat... :D
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Astral on September 14, 2007, 05:15:48 PM
And I'm on the edge of my Skoda!
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on September 14, 2007, 06:55:01 PM
Umm, I'm on the edge of reason.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: mr_chris on September 14, 2007, 09:06:52 PM
Well, I'm just on the edge :P
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: Floydoid on September 20, 2007, 12:07:44 PM
Well, so far I'm very impressed... an overall brighter look to my desktop, and hi-res videos play much more smoothly... I'm thinking 25 quid well spent.
Title: Re: Budget Graphics cards
Post by: mr_chris on September 20, 2007, 01:01:24 PM
For non-3D stuff there probably isn't much between the low-end and high-end NVidia cards, they all perform pretty well, infinitely better than most on-board solutions.