Best card for $100

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Lancore

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Hello, I am looking at cards. I am an avid gamer. Specs: core duo E6600 2.4 ghz 775. asus P5B deluxe/wifi-ap FSB 1066 4mb L2 cache. PC 2 6400 4x1GB DDR2 SDRAM dual channel. So this is what I have found http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127478 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143187&cm_re=9800-_-14-143-187-_-Product http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871 Looking for best performance with cheapest price... I am thinking the MSI takes the cake. its PCIe 2.0 so i think its backwards compatible with my mobo being PCIe 1.0... correct me if im wrong plz. Thank you!
 
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nrnx

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nrnx

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Read the auction description. Its a mis-titled auction, its actually for the 5600 series, someone goofed up their e-bay ad.
 
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nrnx

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Its a 512MB and an OEM you just linked too, the 512 MB version isn't worth it; and the OEM doesn't even have a brand, so its likely shoddy quality reference everything. The XFX 4770 > both those 4850s.
 
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capt_taco

capt_taco

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I'd go with the 4850 regardless. Heat issues are a problem if you have heat issues already -- in other words, if you've got a cramped case or poor airflow. Otherwise, if you've got a normal system, there are thousands and thousands of people running 4850s with no ill effects.
 
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skora

skora

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You shell out loads of cash for a 25.5" monitor and only leave $100 for the GPU? If at all possible, wait for a few more pennies to come in and try for AT LEAST a 4870/5770+. Being an avid gamer, the GTX 275 or ATI 4890 would be the minimum I'd suggest at that resolution if not stepping up for current gen cards. Those though are pushing the $300 limit.

4870 1gb $140 amir free delivery:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161292&cm_re=4870-_-14-161-292-_-Product

If not, pushing a $100 GPU at those resolutions will benefit from 1gb of ram. This is my suggestion, 4850 1gb $95 amir free delivery:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131163
 
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jyjjy

jyjjy

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Yeah, for 1920x1200 you are going to want to spend a bit more. The HD4850 or GTS 250 will be ok for that resolution but not particularly good.
You want something more in line with that HD4870 linked above, which is a good deal. I would recommend the HD5770 instead however as it is DX11 compatible, much more power efficient/runs cooler and is only very slightly more expensive;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102858
 
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nrnx

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the E6600 is not a Quad Core processor; it is a dual core processor - one aimed at the midstream market 4 years ago. It is below the E7200 which is entry level non-bottleneck for the 4850. All of you people are telling him to get a card that will most definitely bottleneck his system, as running my old 4850 on an E7200 @ stock and the bottleneck was HUGE. The 4770 however he will be able to unlock the full power of with his current rig.
 
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jyjjy

jyjjy

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So you are saying the E7200 was a HUGE bottleneck for an HD4850 but the HD4770, which is only 5-10% slower should be fine for this guys system?
Honestly it sounds like you are just making things up. First off there will always be a "bottleneck" of some sort. Whether or not it will be the CPU depends on the game, the settings, the resolution and even what is specifically going on in the game at the moment. Like I said earlier his processor at stock speeds will be a bottleneck for certain games but with a decent overclock it should be just fine.
 
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nrnx

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Jeeze, Everyone king of insults around here these days?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/253315-33-running-e6600-4870

http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=881205

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/265574-33-core-e6400-13ghz-bottleneck-4890 (almost same processor 6400).

I am not making things up, I am doing research on the question in hand then formulating an answer. The 4870 and 4890 would be bottlenecked without a question. To NOT be a bottleneck he'd have to get his E6600 up to 3GHZ or higher, which he stated he hasn't. E6600 != Q6600 which even then was said needed a bit of OCing to max out the 4890 performance. Lancore has mentioned nothing of overclocking, and thus you cannot automatically assume that he will be overclocking his processor to get rid of the bottleneck. Not everyone here has the same level of technical skill; a lot do just buy parts install them and leave it at that.


And yes, I am saying the 4850 was a HUGE bottleneck for a non-oc'ed E7200 which I used for a year and a half. Frame rates would get choppy in games such as FarCry 2 and Crysis Warhead was completely unplayable.

Conversely my wife had the same exact computer I did with a 4770 and she ran things much more smoothly than I did (albiet on a bit lower settings), why? No CPU throttling.
 
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jyjjy

jyjjy

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You are ignoring that the HD4850 and HD4770 have very similar performance. The issue most definitely was not a CPU bottleneck if the HD4770 was "smooth" and the HD4850 was not. A cpu bottleneck doesn't make things less "smooth" anyway, it just means you wouldn't be able to use the card to its full potential which may be a waste of money. If your wife's computer had the same processor and hers could play those games smoothly while yours couldn't then most likely it was the lower settings alone that made the difference you saw or perhaps some other difference between the two systems. A more powerful video card will never make games less playable.
Like I said earlier what will be the bottleneck can change dramatically based on resolution and the game being played. This is a fact. You cant just say E7200 + HD4850 = bottleneck, it doesn't work like that. If you want to say in X game, at Y resolution processor Z will bottleneck card Q then fine. In this case the E6600 will actually bottleneck the HD4850(and any other capable card) in the more cpu intensive games although the high resolutions will make that less of an issue as the video card itself will often be stressed to give decent frame rates at a resolution higher than what is optimal for the card.
If you want to tell if the CPU is a bottleneck it can be tested by increasing the resolution. If the frames per second doesn't really go down much or stays the same then the processor is what is limiting frame rates.
As for the threads you linked the first seems to be saying the processor will bottleneck an HD4870 slightly which seems about right. The second is about the HD5870, a good bit more than twice as powerful as the HD4850 so it is simply irrelevant to this discussion. The third is about the HD4890 which is also a much more powerful card.
 
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jyjjy

jyjjy

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Not necessarily. The number of frames the cpu can deliver is independent of the video card used. Frame rates will always be limited by either the cpu or the card. Whichever can deliver more frames per second in whatever game at the settings used will be "bottlenecked" by the other.
 
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