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Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphics & Displays > Nvidia > Which budget gaming graphics card to buy?

Which budget gaming graphics card to buy?

Forum Graphics & Displays : Nvidia Which budget gaming graphics card to buy?

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So i'm thinking of buying a new graphics card to replace my GeForce GT 240. I'm having a hard time deciding between the GTX 550ti and the GTX 460, The GTX 560 is out of the list because its 200$ and a lot more expensive than the two i mentioned. I have a 500W PSU and my motherboard is a Biostar N68S3+. If any of you guys know a better card for the money then please respond :)

Reply to Lazar_99
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I'd suggest an amd gpu as they are better for sub $200

the 460 is a lot better than the 550 ti tho. The 6870 wich can be had for much less than $200 is more powerful than either by a substantial margin.

------------------------------ sllaw eht no nettirw gnihtemos saw ecno ereht
Reply to esrever
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I'd also suggest an AMD GPU like 6870 it will be best choice. It has more power than GTX560 the card that you can compare to 6870 is GTX560Ti

Reply to 7ccccc7

esrever wrote :

I'd suggest an amd gpu as they are better for sub $200

the 460 is a lot better than the 550 ti tho. The 6870 wich can be had for much less than $200 is more powerful than either by a substantial margin.



How about the AMD HD 6850?

Reply to Lazar_99
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Lazar_99 wrote :

How about the AMD HD 6850?



No, I don't recommend you buying the AMD HD 6850, buy the 6870 instead since you will loose more performance than the money you saved, so a 6870 has a better $/performance ratio than the 6850.

------------------------------ Desktop: |AMD Phenom II 1045T @3.2GHz|ASUS M4A88T-M|MSI Radeon HD 7770|8GB Crucial DDR3|WD Caviar Black 2TB|
Portable: |Intel Core Duo T2250 @1.7GHz|Intel i945G|GMA 950|2GB DDR2|Hitachi 160GB|
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Reply to bloc97
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6850 is around the same performance as the 1Gb 460 and just below a 6870 the way pricing is at the moment its worth the extra for the 6870 unless you find a bargain on the 6850.

Reply to simon12
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+1 to everything about the 6870, I'm all for it!

Had one myself, loved it!

Reply to xbeater
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an hd 6870 will be more powerful then the hd 6850 even an gtx 460 and its little bit comparable towards the gtx 560ti.:)

hd 6850 vs hd 6870 here u can see that an hd 6860 is 10-15% better then hd 6850.:)
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/291?vs=290

hd 6870 vs 560ti
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/290?vs=330

Reply to sunnk

simon12 wrote :

6850 is around the same performance as the 1Gb 460 and just below a 6870 the way pricing is at the moment its worth the extra for the 6870 unless you find a bargain on the 6850.



I still have a 500W PSU which i'm afraid it will die after 6 months with the 6870. I also have only 2 of those 4pin connectors on my PSU

Reply to Lazar_99
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What power supply do you have? If its a good quality 500W then it will power any of the cards mentioned so far

Reply to simon12

simon12 wrote :

What power supply do you have? If its a good quality 500W then it will power any of the cards mentioned so far



I have a Xilence 500W PSU

Reply to Lazar_99
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Looking at Xilence PSUs there are a number of models and they seem to be low-medium quality. On the label on it what power rating does it give for the 12V rail or rails? For example this has 2 rails rated at 15A & 16A (Which is low for what they label as a 600W PSU)
http://www.technic3d.com/article/pics/330/ge_892.jpg

Reply to simon12

simon12 wrote :

Looking at Xilence PSUs there are a number of models and they seem to be low-medium quality. On the label on it what power rating does it give for the 12V rail or rails? For example this has 2 rails rated at 15A & 16A (Which is low for what they label as a 600W PSU)
http://www.technic3d.com/article/pics/330/ge_892.jpg



My model is a XP500.

AC Input |110-240V | 8.5A - 5.5A | 60-50Hz
DC Output |+3.3V | +5V | +12V1 | +12V2 | -12V | +5VSB
| 26.0A | 30.0A | 18.0A | 20.0A| 0,5A | 2.5A

Reply to Lazar_99

simon12 wrote :

Looking at Xilence PSUs there are a number of models and they seem to be low-medium quality. On the label on it what power rating does it give for the 12V rail or rails? For example this has 2 rails rated at 15A & 16A (Which is low for what they label as a 600W PSU)
http://www.technic3d.com/article/pics/330/ge_892.jpg



I also forgot to ask how much 4pin connectors do i need for the HD 6850 and the GTX 460?

Reply to Lazar_99
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Graphics cards need 6 & or 8 pin connectors not 4 pin im not sure but I thin k the 6850 needs 1 6 pin and the 460 needs 2 6 pin

Reply to simon12
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