GeForce 210 vs GeForce 8400 GS

LearningHardware

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I'm trying to pick between 2 graphics cards - both produced by EVGA & sold thru Buy.com with only a $5 price difference between the two. I currently use my on-board graphics (ATI Radeon HD 3200 that is using 1663MB of my RAM) and Win7's "Performance Information & Tools" report shows my graphics as my lowest score - 2.9 vs 5.9 for everything else. So I'm hoping a cheap graphics card will help the overall performance of my PC (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5600+).

I don't do any gaming, just typical Windows apps and occasionally some video via internet. So which of these two cards would be best? They both have a $20 rebate & free shipping, so I'm only looking at spending $30-$35.

The few differences I can find between the two cards are summarized below:
GeForce 210 Graphics Card ($34.24 after $20 rebate)
Chipset Model - 210
Chipset Series - 200
Software Included - none listed
API Support - DirectX 10.1
Shader Model - not described

GeForce 8400 GS Graphics Card ($29.24 after $20 rebate)
Chipset Model - 8400 GS
Chipset Series - 8
Software Included - EVGA Driver/Software
API Support - DirectX 10.0 & OpenGL
Shader Model - 4

I apologize for the newbie simplicity of my question. Thank you in advance for your advice!
 

need4speeds

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The hd-4650 is the best cheap card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102829
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4650 512MB $34.99 after mail-in rebate card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150525
XFX HD-467X-ZNL2 Radeon HD 4670 1GB $44.99 after mail-in rebate

Both cards are low profile cards that include brackets so they work in both full height and half height pc's. The 4670 is only 50mhz faster than the 4650 and $10 more, but it looks like a even smaller card that is even lower power than the 4650.
 

need4speeds

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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127544
MSI R4350-MD512H/D3 Radeon HD 4350 512MB
$14.99 after mail-in rebate Free HDMI cable w/ purchase, limited offer

Mostly the hd-4350 has 80 shader cores and the hd-4650/4670 have 320 shader cores. The 4350 is about twice as fast as your current 40 shader hd-3200.
The 4650/4670 is about 4 times faster then the 4350 or 8 times faster than the hd-3200.

Well good luck.
 

ok, for a start, forget Win7's "Performance Information & Tools" it is not a good indicator of performance. Also the graphics score is not relevant to you if your not going to be playing 3d games. You onboard wont be much different from either gt210 or 8400gs. Its not using 1663mb of your ram like you think. That is the Maximum it can use, but it wont if your not playing games and even then it wouldnt use all that ram. It may be using 32mb at most. A cheap gfx card will have very little impact on overall performance and you wont notice it, even a high end video card wont help windows performance, only game performance. Your better off investing in some more ram for the money your looking at spending it will give you more benefit. If your looking at blueray playback or something you may want to look at an ati 5450 or something in the 5xxx series as they have better hardware accelleration for that.
 

LearningHardware

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To all who've responded thus far - thank you! I appreciate the help!

Additionally, to iam2thecrowe - mega-thanks for your reply! You gave me the kind of info I really need (i.e. education on Win7's PI&T) so I can actually get some kind of idea as to whether I'm going to get anything out of an upgraded video card. I've asked 3 [supposedly] hardware-savvy friends and none of them have been able to answer. And I'm dealing with very limited money right now, so smart spending is critical!

I appreciate your suggestion for more RAM. Would it be better to upgrade my processer first? My motherboard has 4 memory slots, 3 in use:
2 slots each with a Corsair 2048 MB DDR2 PC2-6400 (400 MHz)
1 slot with a Kingston 1024 MB DDR2 PC2-5300 (333 MHz)

My current CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+ using Socket AM2, but my motherboard (ECS A780GM-A) supports up to AM2+, supposedly allowing me to upgrade to an AMD Phenom Quad-Core.

Presuming I add a cheap video card (like the GeForce 210 Graphics Card for $34.24 after $20 rebate - it's got 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM) and I stop sharing my RAM with the video ('cuz Win7 never shows more than 3327MB total), should I upgrade the CPU or add/upgrade RAM? The more specific your recommendation, the better - in case I'm best off spending (for example) $50 on RAM and $150 on a particular CPU, vs $200 on a different CPU.

Thanks again for sharing your wisdom!
 
so you have 5gb ram installed? windows 7 wont show more than 4gb unless you have the 64bit version installed. If your after a fast desktop pc not for gaming your best interest with the amount of ram you have would be to upgrade the processor to a phenom or athlonx4. I would probably opt for the athlonx4 as the extra cache of the phenom only really helps out in games.
 

LearningHardware

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To iam2thecrowe and ct1615:

You two are the best! I need to rebuild my pc (reinstall the OS) anyway so I've been hoping to go to the 64 bit version, despite one friend's suggestion that 64 bit has lots of issues with drivers - I just don't believe that's much of a problem any more.

So I'll probably be upgrading to Win7 64 soon, and I'll be adding the GeForce 210 Graphics Card (after the early replies to my query I figured it was worth risking $35, so I ordered it yesterday).

Sounds like my next move should/will be to up my cpu - to either a good athlonx4 (because of iam2thecrowe's note that the extra cache of the phenom only really helps out in games) or to a phenom of very similar price. Would I be better off spending an extra $20-$30 on a Phenom vs an Athlon (such as the Phenom II X4 955 vs the Phenom II X4 840 that ct1615 suggested)? Or should I go with the slightly cheaper processor since it's beginning to sound like I'll have to upgrade my motherboard next, to take advantage of faster RAM, etc.

Thanks again!