Which card to replace a malfunctioning 8500GT?

[Darth Windu]

Hi folks,

Seems my Gigabyte 8500GT is playing up so I'm thinking of replacing it. That, and it's the slowest part of my system at the moment. Now having said that, I have no idea what kind of card to go for. The way I see it, my options are

- Gigabyte GT 220 1GB DDR3
- Gigabyte GT 240 1GB DDR3
- Sapphire HD 5670 512MB DDR5
- Sapphire HD 5670 1GB DDR5
- Gigabyte GTS 250 1GB DDR3

Honestly I know very little about the specific differences between these cards, except for price. I think it's fairly obvious the GTS 250 is better than the GT 240, which is better than the GT 220. No idea about ATI cards though except the RAM is better and it supports DX11, which the nVidia cards do not.

Can anyone give me some advice in terms of the quality of the cards; what the ATI card is like; which ones represent the best value for money etc?

Thanks

 

[obsidian86]

what power supply do you have

 

[Lmeow]

In terms of performance, the GTS 250 1GB DDR3 is the fastest card. In terms of price performance - probably the GTS 250 as well.
The GeForce GT 220 and GT 240 are overpriced imo - the HD 4650 and GeForce 9600GT are around the same price and perform better.
What power supply do you have as obsidian asked before - if it's not good enough, then it won't be able to power the system. Gives us the rest of your system specs as well.
About the HD 5670 - it's a DirectX 11 capable graphic card which performs slightly worse than an underclocked HD 4770, but does not need a 6-pin power connector. Right now, I believe it is a little overpriced - for the same price you can get an HD 4850 which performs the same as a GTS 250.

I'd personally pick the Gigabyte GTS 250 1GB, only if your power supply can deliver enough power to it though, and it has one 6-pin PCI-e connector. If it's too weak, and you don't want to choose a new power supply, go for the HD 5670.

nVidia suggests that the minimum power supply requirement is 450W, on XFX's website it asks for 26A on the 12V rail. Although I'd say you could get away with a high quality 400W - like the Corsair CX-400 400W PSU.

 

[megamanx00]

GTS 250 is the fastest. The only thing is, it also uses the most power. If you have a good 400W PSU, or a decent 500W PSU go with the GTS250. If not, then go with the Radeon 5670.

 

[builderbobftw]

Wow, What do you know, faster cards use more power!

(Other than GTX 480 vs 5970 lol)

 

[JackNaylorPE]

250 is a great buy.....especially at $59 net cost after the free game.

$109 w/ Free Resident Evil 5 ($50) = net cost of $59
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.342619
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.342631
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.342633

 

[Darth Windu]

Well currently I have a 350W power supply, can cheaply upgrade to a 430W (I think). The rest of my specs are:

- AMD 6000+ Dual Core (two 3GHz cores)
- 6GB DDR2 800 RAM
- Gigabyte M61-PM Motherboard
- 160GB WD HD
- 1.5TB WD HD
- Coolermaster Elite Case w/ extra fan

In terms of prices, of course the GTS250 is the most expensive, but still not bad at $160 AUD. The Sapphire 1GB card is $129-ish, and the other two nVidia's are in the $100 region.

 

[mteeple]

You would probably have to upgrade your PSU with those stats if you want to upgrade to a GTS 250 which is probably the fastest out of those options , DX11 isn't really needed that badly yet, almost all games still suport dx 10 or 9 so you could stick with the GTS 250 for a while off DX version alone (not in strength though since cards become outdated quickly), so I think the GTS 250 is probably the better choice over the 5670, especially with the link JackNaylor put up

 

[Darth Windu]

What would the difference be between the ATI cards running DDR5 instead of the nVidia DDR3, if any?

 

[atomicprince11]

If you can spend a little more money, You can get a HD4870 1GB DDR5 or HD5770.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/284839-15-5770-4870

 

[builderbobftw]

If you can spend a little more money, You can get a HD4870 1GB DDR5 or HD5770.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/284839-15-5770-4870

The 4870 is not a very good choice now, lack of demand has brought up prices from the 130$ price point, and 5770 has dropped 20$ in price to the point where the 5770 is now the better buy.

I would get the Free game/GTs 250.

 

[Darth Windu]

Well that's the thing atomic, I don't want to spend too much. The 1GB Sapphire card for example is $30 cheaper than the GTS250.

 

[Darth Windu]

Okay so looking at the reviews I figured there wasn't a huge difference between the GTS 250 and HD5670, and that the extra $35 for the GTS 250 wasn't worth it.

I then looked at two reviews (http://ninjalane.com/reviews/video/gigabyte-5670/page11.aspx) and (http://ninjalane.com/reviews/video/palit_gts250/page12.aspx) which seem to indicate that although the GTS 250 isn't DX11 compatible and only has DDR3 RAM, it takes a dump on the HD5670 in terms of performance.

Are these figures accurate?

 

[builderbobftw]

The GTS 250 512mb with free game is 120$, shipped, after reabte.

 

[Darth Windu]

For Americans, sure, but I'm an Aussie

 

[jenkem]

The GTS 250 is obviously better than all of the other options, and probably worth the extra 20 or so over the 5670, but it might be pushing your power supply. Unless you upgrade it, your safest choice would be the 5670, which offers the best bang for the power consumption.
The 5670 isn't really powerful enough to take advantage of a full gb of memory, so the bang for buck gets a bit better too once you start looking at the 512 mb models. Most benchmarks don't show more then 1 fps difference unless you go into resolutions where it isn't playable anyways.

 

[Darth Windu]

Ah, quite interesting info there jenkem, thanks.

I've been looking at the options, it seems that there is a small price jump and big performance jump all the way up to the Sapphire HD5770, then a big jump in price above that.

I'm thinking that would probably make the HD5770 the best choice, including longevity of the card?

 

[sabot00]

There's extremely cheap 4850's.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102824&cm_re=4850-_-14-102-824-_-Product

 

[builderbobftw]

85$ was cheap, over 100$ is NOT.

 

[RazberyBandit]

First, to clarify your DDR3 vs DDR5 question.

Yes, DDR5 is faster than DDR3. The true difference in performance on a video card relies just as much on it's BUS speed, indicated by it's bit-rate. Makers can increase and decrease the bit-rate of the memory used to define the actual memory bandwidth. So, if both types are using the same bit-rate, DDR5 is faster. But if DDR5 is used on a 128-bit BUS and DDR3 on a 256-bit BUS, the actual memory bandwidth is much closer in performance than the memory type used would indicate.

As far as your actual card choices, consult this Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart for a general performance ranking. You'll see that your aforementioned GTS 250's performance is comparable to the HD4850 and HD5750. If any of these cards are within your budget, then I suggest selecting one of them.

As far as powering them, the 4850 and GTS 250 both present potential concerns for your 350W PSU. If you do not intend to do any overclocking, it should be adequate. But, an upgrade to something in the 400-450W range that specifically has more 12V Amperage wouldn't hurt.

 

[sabot00]

First, to clarify your DDR3 vs DDR5 question.

Yes, DDR5 is faster than DDR3. The true difference in performance on a video card relies just as much on it's BUS speed, indicated by it's bit-rate. Makers can increase and decrease the bit-rate of the memory used to define the actual memory bandwidth. So, if both types are using the same bit-rate, DDR5 is faster. But if DDR5 is used on a 128-bit BUS and DDR3 on a 256-bit BUS, the actual memory bandwidth is much closer in performance than the memory type used would indicate.

As far as your actual card choices, consult this Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart for a general performance ranking. You'll see that your aforementioned GTS 250's performance is comparable to the HD4850 and HD5750. If any of these cards are within your budget, then I suggest selecting one of them.

As far as powering them, the 4850 and GTS 250 both present potential concerns for your 350W PSU. If you do not intend to do any overclocking, it should be adequate. But, an upgrade to something in the 400-450W range that specifically has more 12V Amperage wouldn't hurt.

To clarify there's 3 factors, bus width, ram clock, and ram type.

 

[Darth Windu]

Thanks for that guys. Yeah I've been looking at the Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart for a bit now, of course it doesn't take into account things like DX11 compatible etc, the little extras on the different cards.

I think the main issue I have is that for a small price increase over every card more or less there is a good performance boost. The question is - where do I stop? I want to get the most bang for my buck so to speak, but also to get a card I'm not going to have to worry about replacing any time soon.

 

[builderbobftw]

Well, The awnser to that question is the Radeon 5850.

But, Thats out of Budget right?

 

[nforce4max]

Wow thick headed go from chat about psu specs to getting a 4870. With that psu I wouldn't be able to sli two of those 8500GTs much less manage a 4870. Both the 4870 and the GTS250 are good cards. I would get a new psu of at least a 550w quality psu like my antec neo he550 which I had more than enough power to spare with even a small over volt on the 12v rails when using a 8800gtx and silent to. Note that both cards will need to be cleaned every two or three months if you really want them to last, modern rigs aren't like an IBM ps/2 or an Amiga ware you could chunk it around and still last 20 years.

 

[Darth Windu]

builderbob - well, yes . The difference is that even the most expensive I'm looking at - the 5770 - is $200, whereas the 5850 is $400 for the cheapest. That's way out of my budget, and more than I'm willing to spend.

nforce4max - oh I realise with the more powerful cards I'll need a bigger PSU. As for SLI my motherboard doesn't have SLI, so can't use it. At the time I had a choice of SLI (which I figured I wouldn't use) or with onboard graphics, which I figured would be useful if my GPU ever dies - at least I'd be able to keep using the system to search for a new card.