How ideal is the GT 610 for a basic media machine?

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May 2, 2015
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Hello there,
I am looking to be building a new PC for my parents in the near future after my father made the foolish decision of purchasing an all in one computer for the rip off price of $499 awhile back even though I strongly advised against it. They constantly complain about how bad it is (Dual Core 1.7 ghz, R.I.P), so I'm looking to build them a new one.

Recently on centrecom's website, they commenced a mothers day sale with a few nice deals here and there (I'm Australian by the way), and included in the sale is a GT 610 for the price of $49. I understand the card is extremely low end, but would it be ideal for basic media browsing, facebook games, watching youtube etc? I could easily purchase a much more powerful card to accompany the build, but I don't see it necessary due to how they would utilise it.

I'd greatly appreciate any answers or people's previous experiences with the card.

Thank you for your time.
 
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coozie7
If there is the possibility of doing those things then the GT730 would be a sound investment, I've just finished playing around with my 8800GT 512Mb card and it's surprising what games will actually run on it (albeit with a i5 4690K driving it).
While memory intensive games like FC3 and Wolfenstien TNO either won't load (FC3) or are a 1 FPS slideshow (Wolfenstein) many others run acceptably well at medium settings (Metro 2033, Metro 2033 Redux and Metro LL for example) are all playable, even in the demanding outdoor sections.
Me, I'd either use a i3 or an A8 as base CPU/graphics, pop in a half decent 500 Watt power supply along with 8Gb of DDR3 1600 RAM with a fast 1Tb HDD and call it a day, if they want to go for other uses the base...
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Jun 24, 2014
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Considering that card is two generations back, I'd advise something from a more current generation that's more likely to fully support directx 12 and other upcoming technologies. That card will likely do what you need for it to do now, at least somewhat as long as nobody decides they want to delve into other uses with it but I'd think you'd be much better off with something like this going forward. This GT 730 has twice the VRAM and is GDDR 5 rather than 3, so it's quicker, stronger and should support more technologies for a longer period of time:

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-02gp33733kr

 
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coozie7

coozie7

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Jun 2, 2007
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If they are just doing that kind of thing I'd rather go for an AMD 'A' series CPU (APU) and just use its built in graphics core, which will be stronger that the GT610 anyway and avoid the driver clutter.

If you feel they need more graphics horsepower, by all means drop a GT730 in there, although I feel 2Gb is excessive for such light work, if you can find one that's not overpriced there's no harm in having a little more power available.
An alternative: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvn730d31gi

One last point, there is a fair few silent or passively cooled cards in this sort of price/performance segment, they are, obviously silent but they DO still need some ventilation, and are prone to overheating in small, poorly cooled cases. A single front intake fan in the case will solve the problem.
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Jun 24, 2014
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It won't be overkill if they decide the media center needs multiple panels or 4k resolutions or more involved gaming. If that's not likely to ever happen, which I often see clients change gears six months later and decide they want to do a little more with the system, because "they saw this on...." and want something similar, then I'd agree that probably any current Gen i5 or AMD iGPU would be plenty, and be better than that GT 610. Keep in mind it's going to use system memory though, so more and faster memory is always a helpful consideration when using integrated graphics.
 
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coozie7

coozie7

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Jun 2, 2007
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59,215
If there is the possibility of doing those things then the GT730 would be a sound investment, I've just finished playing around with my 8800GT 512Mb card and it's surprising what games will actually run on it (albeit with a i5 4690K driving it).
While memory intensive games like FC3 and Wolfenstien TNO either won't load (FC3) or are a 1 FPS slideshow (Wolfenstein) many others run acceptably well at medium settings (Metro 2033, Metro 2033 Redux and Metro LL for example) are all playable, even in the demanding outdoor sections.
Me, I'd either use a i3 or an A8 as base CPU/graphics, pop in a half decent 500 Watt power supply along with 8Gb of DDR3 1600 RAM with a fast 1Tb HDD and call it a day, if they want to go for other uses the base system will be able to handle a good graphics upgrade in the future, if not, then the base system will be more than strong enough.
 
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