Bang for Buck

[musicmelody]

I'm working on adding onto my system and I had a few questions, but first, my specs.

ATI Radeon 5450 1G GPU (No fan, only heatsink) MSI afterburner puts me at 45C idle and up to 75 very RARELY 80 under full load (when I say load I mean max MSI kombuster running for an hour or two)
AMD Athlong 64 X2 4400+ 2.3ghz Processor (being upgraded with new MoBo and Proc this christmas, to a Phenom II 965 blck)
4 Gigs of DDR2 Ram
HDD Fan (two little fans in shroud attached to back of HDD)
PCI Slot Fan (right above video card)
90mm case fan
1 HDD (might be getting an SSD in the future)
1 Optical drive
1 little multimedia card reader
1 HP Pocket media bay
Thermaltake TR2 430w PSU. 80 Plus Cert.

I will be upgrading to an aftermarket cooler as well for the new PCU.

Also, I can't fit a HUGE card as it is a mid-tower ATX case, so I am guessing I have about 7, maybe 8 inch max? Not a whole lot longer than the card I have in there now.

I am just wondering, what is the best bang for your buck video card? My budget is 80 to 110 USD, 80 being worst case and 110 being best. I was looking at the ATI 7770, but wasn't sure if an nVidia card of equal power would run cooler or more efficient.

Any advice or thoughts?

Oh, also, 1650 by 1080 monitor.

 

[Sumukh_Bhagat]

Yeah 7770 is the best in that range, but try for a 7850 if you can.

 

[tassietim]

seen a review on the 7770 card on tinytomlogans site he didn't go much on it from memory
but Toms did a nice review on the gtx650ti which included the 7770 in its listings on power consumption noise levels etc might give you a better idea on what to get

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-650-ti-benchmark-gk106,3318-18.html

plus most the cards listed are short length ones

 

[musicmelody]

How about my PSU, would it handle that? 235 watt at max load seems like a lot of power.

 

[mohit9206]

i think the 650 ti would be bottlenecked pretty bad by that 7 year old athlon dual core 4400+. so you are better off with a 7750 or 7770 at most.

 

[hytecgowthaman]

650W or above power supply is best for your configuration.

 

[prototype18]

Well that PSU is just crappy. Nothing good in there.

7750/70 would do the best but you need a new PSU.

Xfx 550W Pro Core Edition. Just great .Made by seasonic its just great.

Edit : BTW you need a new PC

I just sold my 4200+ oced to 2.5 for 270$. With onboard GPU and 4 Gb ddr2 800 and 40Gb Hdd.

 

[musicmelody]

I will be upgrading the processor, and if something a little lower end would run on it, that would be fine. This build is not going to be the run all, be all build, it is just holding me over until next year.

I only say that because my current budget doesn't allow room much for a PSU upgrade, so a card that would run better than that crappy 5450 on it would be fine. I was just shooting my hopes high I suppose.

 

[prototype18]

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermaltake-Purepower-430W-NP-Power-Supply-Review/332/7

Well that PSU failed the test to deilver 430W.

So why dont you get a AntecVP-450 for 30 $ And a 7750/70 ?

 

[musicmelody]

I found this post, http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/332170-28-thermaltake-430w, and was wondering, since my current card, the 5450, doesn't draw off anything but the MoBo, like the 7750, and it is rated with a PSU of 400W or more, so that confuses me.

Any more thoughts to this post or my one before?

 

[musicmelody]

Oh, well still, if the GPU draws off the board, like my current one, and it hasn't given me any problems...

 

[musicmelody]

Okay after reading about several reviews I will getting another power supply. sigh... I hate it when stuff like this happens to me.