Upgrade from Radeon HD 4200, $100 Budget

lastofthegenoharadan

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Mar 9, 2011
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APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: this week

BUDGET RANGE: $50 - $100

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Portal 2 at 1920x1080, Team Fortress 2, maybe Shogun 2 Total War

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: ATI Radeon HD 4200 (Integrated), CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, AMD Phenom(tm) II X2 555 Processor (2 CPUs) 3.2GHz, MSI 785GT-E63 Socket AM2+ 785G ATX Motherboard, 3840MB DDR2 RAM

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: amazon, newegg, microcenter

PARTS PREFERENCES: Needs to go in a PCI Express 2.0 x16 Graphics Slot

OVERCLOCKING: Possible with MoBo

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Not sure, my motherboard evidently has "Hybrid CrossFireX". To be honest, I have no idea what that is.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I Built this system about a year ago but never purchased a Dedicated Graphics Card. I am a bit overwhelmed by the options and would like some advice on a card that should be able to more or less handle new(ish) games for a few years. Thanks!
 
Solution
newegg has the geforce gts 440 1gb for under $100:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261102

they also have an "open box" radeon HD 5770 for around the same price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102873R


Honestly though, if you go up to the $130 range, you get a huge increase in performance. Case in point, the $130 geforce gtx 460:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187116

That card, for only $30 more will blow those others out of the water in a major way.

pwnttothemax

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Mar 4, 2011
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newegg has the geforce gts 440 1gb for under $100:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261102

they also have an "open box" radeon HD 5770 for around the same price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102873R


Honestly though, if you go up to the $130 range, you get a huge increase in performance. Case in point, the $130 geforce gtx 460:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187116

That card, for only $30 more will blow those others out of the water in a major way.
 
Solution
You has a GREAT specs there, but for 1920x1080, you will need MORE than $100 to play games with decent setting.
Why don't you save a little bit and get GTX460, just like pwnttothemax suggest above?

With GTX460, you can play almost every games with decent setting at 1920x1080. Not maxed out everything but enough to play with decent quality. :)
 

bishoplord

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Aug 6, 2009
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If you go GTX 460, get at least a 1GB card, don't bother with the 768mb cards. The 1GB is only $10 or $20 more and with the extra memory, it's pay off in the long run. Plus, the 768mb Sparkle is only 192-bit. The 1GB model is 256-bit.

I have two GTX 460's. They're both Palit brand. One is the normal sonic 700mhz 1GB, and the other is the sonic platinum - stock overclocked to 800mhz. Point I'm trying to get at, the normal 1GB model barely had enough juice to play games like HAWX2 and Fallout3 in 3D (1280 x 720 120hz - Nvidia 3D Vision). I had to turn down most settings to minimal so that I'd have decent frame rates. Now the overclocked card handles these games no problem all by itself and in 3D mode with 3D Vision - however, I do have to turn some setting down a little and AA either to 2x or none at all. Since both of these cards are advertised as overclocked editions, one day I'm going to bump that 800mhz model to 900mhz and the other card to either 800 or shoot for 900 as well.

Also, I had a Radeon XFX 5770 card a few months back and then sold it on Ebay after I ran benchmarks and compared it to the PowerColor Radeon AX4850 it was supposed to replace but the 5770 barely bested the 4850 in only certain 3D application! This wasn't worth the $140 I paid for that card, IMO. I think the 5770 isn't anything more than a 4750 bumped up to support HDMI 1.4 and GDDR5 ram instead of GDDR3. You'll be able to play those games you mentioned with this card.. but... one day you might want to play games like Crysis 2 who knows, but to be honest, I played the 1st Crysis with my 4850 no problem. I'm not sure what settings I had to adjust or if I did any adjustments, but the frame rate was cool.

Here's a side by side comparison/benchmark of the 5770 vs gtx 460:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/296?vs=313

The GTX 460 (normal 700mhz model) blows both the Radeon cards away. It's like they're not even in the same league - and remember what I said about the performance of this card above, so just imagine how the 5770 would have handled these games (might be unfair since the ATI wasn't used in 3D mode and isn't compatible with 3D Vision. 3D Vision will need more HP to handle the 3D). I didn't own these games when I was using the 4850. The 5770 is an ok card and it "may" suit your purpose; It'll definitely fit your budget. Ultimately, you'll have to judge whether you'll be satisfied with your purchase and what you could afford now or maybe wait a little longer to save up an addition $50 to get a much better card that would be the better value. I too thought like you and ordered the GTS 450, but as I awaited this card to arrive in the mail, I found out I would not be able to play the games I wanted in 3D Vision, so I ordered the GTX 460 and returned the GTS as soon as it arrived (no restocking fee, thank's Fry's). I later found out about SLI and got bit by that bug and upgraded my motherboard and bought and addition card off Ebay.

However, had I known better, the $180+ I paid for the Palit GTX 460 Sonic (still haven't receive my $30 rebate), and the $160 I paid for the Sonic Platinum (used from Ebay - damn cooling fan already broke - probably why he sold it so cheap) I should have used this money and bought something better for $340 - but not for the life of me could I imagine paying as much as a PS3 for just 1 video card. Buying two cards took me a couple months, but I did it - and running them in SLI supposedly has the same performance as $600 Nvidia cards, but I haven't seen the performance yet because I believe one slot is running x16 while the other is running x4 (it should have been x8/x8 in SLI mode, but I guess I was wrong? It all depends on your SLI motherboard and I must have missed this info when I made the purchase 2 weeks ago).

Whatever decision you make, i'm sure it'll be the right one. Just one thing if I may add... think beyond those currently games you want to play now. Think about what you may want to play next year and beyond.


***
I know why the 5770 wasn't much better than the 4850. Here's the stats of the two:

PowerColor AX4850 1GBD3-H Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Chipset Manufacturer: ATI
Core Clock: 625MHz
Stream Processors: 800 Stream Processing Units
Effective Memory Clock: 1900MHz


XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Chipset Manufacturer: ATI
Core Clock: 850MHz
Stream Processors: 800 Stream Processing Units
Effective Memory Clock: 1200MHz (4.8Gbps)
 

jb6684

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Hybrid Crossfire is where you link the On-board 4250 with your PCI - E graphics card. BUT, this would require you link with a low end card ONLY.... So, skip this....

Your motherboard only has ONE PCI - E slot so you can't SLI or Crossfire (have more than one video card)

A 5770 is a nice little card, about $100 will do it, but, it's not that powerful.....

A 460 1Gb would be better I have MSI Talon Attacks that are factory OC clocked at 811Mhz WAY above stock of 675Mhz and they claim to match the performance of the GTX 470.... (and they do..)

But then, as this card is Designed to overclock (triple voltage control and a massive dual fan cooler) you can go up from their. I run 900 Mhz with a slight voltage bump running 60C. Many owners have hit 1Ghz ..... or more.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127534