Which of these 2 graphics card is better?

[jungleexplorer]

I recently bought a HIS Radeon HD 4670 IceQ (1GB). Then I won second prize in a the Sparkle USA Give Away, which was a GeForce GTS 250 (512MB). I am not sure which one of these is the better card. Can you help me?

 

[g00fysmiley]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-radeon-hd-6870-geforce-gtx-570,2834-7.html

250 is faster than 4670

 

[UniqueName]

However GTS250 uses a good amounr of auxiliary PCIe power and is much larger. 145watts vs 59watts for HD4670. If your PSU or case can't handle that then it doesn't matter if it's faster.

 

[jungleexplorer]

Thanks. That is an awesome chart. I wish I knew about it a long time ago. The 250 is four tiers above the 4670 and only five tiers from the top spot. That is pretty good, I guess. What really surprised me was the difference between the HD 4670 and 9400GT. I bought a 940GT for the same price I paid for the HD 4670 and so I thought they were about the same. But this chart shows the 9400GT to be 10 tiers below the HD 4670. That is huge difference in performance! That brings me to a different question. I bought the 9400GT for my son's old computer so that he could play some newer games and it has done a lot to improve the performance of his system, but to what extent can graphics card compensate for CPU speed? The reason I am asking is because I cannot upgrade my sons CPU without upgrading the MB and ram. He's got a AMD socket 939 MB with a Athlon 64 X2 2GHz CPU. It is a 4 year old system, and it was a really good system when I first built it, but some of the games he wants to play call for a 3GHz CPU. I cannot find a 3GHz CPU for the 939 socket. I don't think the even made one. So I was wondering to what extent a more powerful GPU can be used to compensate for a slower CPU? I know that he will not be able to play games on this older system, but since I am going to use replace the HD 4670 in my HTPC build with the GTS 250 that I just won, I was thinking of swapping out my son's 9400GT with the HD 4670 if would help overcome his CPU shortcomings. What do you think?

 

[17seconds]

 

[g00fysmiley]

gpu is not going to offload strain from the cpu, only a few applications can do that, however a 939 athlon64x2 isn't a bad system,

there is a toms cpu hiarchy as well you might like

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-core-i5-2500k-amd-e350,2843-6.html

that said, i played alot of modern games on a 939 single core athlon at 1.8 Ghz rinning a 8500gt (much worse than a 4670) i could play mass effect and mass effect 2, bordelands, WoW, and alot of other games, i just had to run them in low settings, the dual core plus the 4670 he might get medium settings depending on his resolution

 

[jungleexplorer]

Best answer selected by jungleexplorer.

 

[jungleexplorer]

Thanks for the replies. It is seldom that I get such well informed answers to my questions on tech forums. I am impressed with this forum.

 

[Mousemonkey]

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