looking for good inexpensive graphic card under $75

[bloodyecko]

! have a ASUS M4A785-M Motherboard with a AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core Processor "2.6 GHS" . I am looking for a graphic card under $75 that will play games like borderlands and starcraft 2.

i am looking into at a XFX Radeon HD 5670 Video Card - 1024MB DDR5, PCI-Express 2.1, CrossFireX, DVI, Dipslay Port, HDMI w/EyeFinity

any other recommended Graphic cards under $75?

 

[linh6496]

well thats the best $75 is gonna get you

 

[bloodyecko]

well thats the best $75 is gonna get you

what kind of games will that let me play

 

[linh6496]

you will be able to play them at around 1440x768 res and at high-max settings

 

[jjb8675309]

grab a 4870 or gtx 260 off ebay, if you have the psu to run it...

 

[iam2thecrowe]

a gts250 would be faster and about the same price if you can still get one. It doesnt have DX11 accelleration, but the 5670 is not fast enough to really use dx11 features anyway, so you wont be missing anything.

 

[jjb8675309]

here is a gtx 260 for $107

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4683600&Sku=B52-0262&SRCCODE=PWATCH&cm_mmc_o=2mHCjCVybgwczfgtCjCVqHCjCdwwp

it will definatley outperform the gts 250, that is if you have the psu to run it...

 

[tpi2007]

That's a good choice; it's slightly slower than an 8800GT/9800GT, but then again, you can't find those for sale now.

For that price Nvidia only has the GT240, but that only has 96 shaders, instead of the 112 of the 9800GT, and the vendors don't sell them all at the same frequencies. Some sell it with a 550Mhz core, others with a 600Mhz core, others in between.

As far as performance goes, they might be more or less the same, epsecially those with a 600Mhz core, but the HD5670 has DX11 (not that it will take advantage of it much because it doesn't have the horsepower, but still, it's a newer card.)

As far as resolutions, prepare to be modest.

First, your CPU has a modest clockspeed to start with; it would be good if you considered overclocking it to something more palatable in the region of 3 Ghz. As even then, you have to factor in the absence of L3 cache, which the Phenoms do have, and yours doesn't, so the more overclock you can safely get out of it, the better to compensate.

Second, being the HD5670 a bit slower than an 8800GT, and the fact that I owned a factory overclocked one (from 600 to 700Mhz core, and from 15xx something shaders to 17xx something Mhz), I can tell you will be able to play some games at

- 1680x1050 with high details (but not many), but it's best to go for medium;

- 1280x800 or 1280x720 with Maximum Details (Left 4 Dead 2, for example, it will stutter at 1680x1050 in Maximum Details)

most games will play at the above resolution once you fine tune the details. Some may play on Very High, others on High, others on Medium.

- Heavy Duty games like Crysis/Crysis Warhead and Metro 2033 will only play at that resolution with Medium/High details. You will probably have to compromise on some things to get it smooth.

Oh, and make sure you have at least 3 or 4GB of ram. 2GB will hinder performance of the rest of your system in a lot of games. It's a good investment to make, especially as the ram prices have fallen in the recent weeks. It's a good time to buy RAM now, as the prices will go up again in the future.

 

[bloodyecko]

Best answer selected by bloodyecko.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

That's a good choice; it's slightly slower than an 8800GT/9800GT, but then again, you can't find those for sale now.

a gts250 can be found for sale now and is faster than all cards mentioned. why wouldnt you get one?

 

[bloodstorm69]

I got a used 4890 off ebay for $78 last week, so like the other people are saying if you havea 500w+ powersupply grab a used 4870,GTX 260, even a 4850 would play everything you need well

 

[jjb8675309]

im confused what is the op doing? bc if that guy is saying that a gts 250 is slower than a 8800 gt than he is wrong (see best answer post)

 

[tpi2007]

! have a ASUS M4A785-M Motherboard with a AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core Processor "2.6 GHS" . I am looking for a graphic card under $75 that will play games like borderlands and starcraft 2.

i am looking into at a XFX Radeon HD 5670 Video Card - 1024MB DDR5, PCI-Express 2.1, CrossFireX, DVI, Dipslay Port, HDMI w/EyeFinity

any other recommended Graphic cards under $75?

a gts250 can be found for sale now and is faster than all cards mentioned. why wouldnt you get one?

I think you forgot to read that he wrote something in the title, and again twice in the post itself: a card under 75$. Since that is the price of a new HD5670, and he quoted it himself, it's reasonable to assume he is looking for a brand new card. You will only easily find a GTS250 for that price if it's second hand. Oh, but the GTS250 has a 150w TDP, while the HD5670 does not even need any addition power connectors as it draws from the PCIe slot, so it's under 75w. He didn' tell the PSU he had, but then again, that is outside his price limit anyway.

im confused what is the op doing? bc if that guy is saying that a gts 250 is slower than a 8800 gt than he is wrong (see best answer post)

Well, that's easy to answer, I read the OP's question properly and he read my answer properly - btw, bloodyecko, thanks for the Best Answer selection!

On the other hand, you just said it yourself - you are confused - because most likely you didn't read it properly. Read the answer again. Where in the answer did I even mention the GTS250 ? I mentioned the GT240, an entirely different card.

You would have noticed it if you had either read the answer or knew the specs of the GTS250 and compared to the specs of the GT240, which I did mention. The GTS250 has 128 shaders, basically it's a rebadged 9800GTX+; while the GT240 has 96 shaders, something that is halfway between the 9600GT and the 8800GT, something along the lines of a 9600GSO or an 8800GS.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey