Radeon 4550 vs 4650?

[danielong1]

It seems as if the 4650 is the better choice. I read about 50+ reviews telling that the idle temperature is 70 degrees Celsius and about 90 degrees Celsius during game play. If the radeon 4650 can only play about 2 hours before crashing and the radeon 4550 can play 4 hours.. I would rather choose the 4550 because it lasts longer(I'll play less demanding games so they'll look all the same LOL)

 

[hunter315]

Where are you getting those numbers? A passively cooled 4650 might hit 90C, but anything with any half way decent active cooler will stay well below that. You shouldnt have crashing issues with the 4650, where ever you were getting your info that a 4650 can only play for 2 hours before crashing was wrong, no one puts out a card that crashes after 2 hours of game play. I would go for the 4650, its about the lowest level gaming card.

Im curious where you got those numbers, if it was a site can you post a link to it please? Im always looking for something entertaining to read.

 

[danielong1]

well actually I got the info from forum topics on tomshardware, reviews on newegg, and a couple more(closed the links so don't know what they are).

I don't believe that the radeon 4650 will crash. I just thought that it might overheat the computer and cause it to perform worse(happened to this computer). I guess the people who got the radeon 4650 with no problems whatsoever were to busy playing it then writing a review :O

 

[hunter315]

A 4650 has a TDP of 48W, less than your average light bulb, it isnt going to have much effect on the heat inside the system, your CPU will almost certainly have more so it isnt going to overheat the computer.

One thing you will probably notice if you stay here for a while, most of us ignore newegg reviews, they tend to get skewed by the few people who had issues or the random ignorant fanboys who thing that the low end thing they got on the super cheap is the greatest thing ever.

 

[falseg0d]

Where are you getting those numbers? A passively cooled 4650 might hit 90C, but anything with any half way decent active cooler will stay well below that. You shouldnt have crashing issues with the 4650, where ever you were getting your info that a 4650 can only play for 2 hours before crashing was wrong, no one puts out a card that crashes after 2 hours of game play. I would go for the 4650, its about the lowest level gaming card.

Im curious where you got those numbers, if it was a site can you post a link to it please? Im always looking for something entertaining to read.

I just built a new rig with 4650, and the card runs quite high, not 90c high, more like 60c.

 

[sabot00]

60C on load isn't high.

 

[falseg0d]

It is for me. And it's 60 on idle.

 

[hunter315]

Well what is it on load, is your card heatsink cleaned out? 60 on idle is high but unless its hitting 85-90C on load its not getting too hot.

 

[sabot00]

Really depends on the cooler, some of the low-profile ones have a cooler the size of a quarter.

 

[jyjjy]

The temp of the GPU is secondary when you are worrying about heat. Even if the GPU runs hot as long as it is in within the cards listed functional range it is fine. How much heat the card will give off into your case is directly related to how much power it uses.
The heat given off by both of the cards you are looking at is negligible and neither of them should crash while gaming unless there is a manufacturing defect. Of the two cards the HD4650 is MUCH better for gaming. The HD4550 isn't a gaming card really and the HD4650 should be roughly twice as powerful. Get the DDR3 version if at all possible or better yet an HD4670/HD5570.

 

[ubernoobie]

gddr3* ddr3 is for mobo/cpu combo while gddr3 is for gpu and gpu's pcb

 

[hunter315]

Actually many of them list it as DDR3, mostly because its the same chips, GDDR5 is actually different, but GDDR3 is the same as DDR3 just on the graphics board so it doesnt matter whether he gets a GDDR3 card or a DDR3 card, its the same stuff, just dont get the DDR2 card.

 

[sabot00]

Wouldn't GDDR5 be the same as DDR5 when it comes out?

 

[hunter315]

Probably not, because first we need to move onto DDR4 and then DDR5 for desktop boards, right now GDDR5 trades very large bandwidth for much higher latencies, hopefully something to be minimized when we move onto quad pumped memory tech for motherboards.

 

[danielong1]

oh alright thanks for the help everyone. I'll update on how my desktop is going/ask some questions on Wednesday.

Edit: What the?! DO you need a PCI-E slot or a PCI Express or are they the same thing? On the other thread, a guy posted that both of the GPUs are PCI-E. I'm just trying to make sure, because the options I selected have PCI-E and PCI or PCI-E and PCI-Express 16(don't want to get a graphics card that I won't use).

 

[sabot00]

PCI-E = PCI Express
E=Express.

 

[jyjjy]

Current graphics cards almost all use a PCI Express(PCI-E) x16 port. There are still some AGP cards around for old systems and there are a handful of PCI cards for systems that have neither but they are quite weak.