Graphics Card Advice

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Ricksta123

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Hey people, would just like to ask a few questions, im looking for a budget graphics card for my spare pc,
something between about R500 - R800 , i will be just using it for bluray movies and the occassional gaming.

These are some options :

http://www.ikonicit.co.za/graphics-cards/nvidia/gt400-series/leadtek-nvidia-geforce-gt440-1gb-gddr3.html Leadtek gt 440
http://www.ikonicit.co.za/graphics-cards/nvidia/gt400-series/msi-n430gt-md1gd3-lp-oc.html Msi 430gt
http://www.pricecheck.co.za/offers/9752493/Asus+ENGT240_DI_1GD3_A+NVIDIA+GeForce+GT+240/ Asus gt240 a bit over budget
http://www.ikonicit.co.za/graphics-cards/ati/hd6000-series/msi-hd6670-1gb.html Msi ati hd 6670

Ive always used Nvidia and im not too sure about ati, would also like to know if you guys think its worth to pay the extra for gddr 5 instead of having a card with gddr 3, everyones help will be much appreciated. Many thanx
 
Just personal opinion here, but out of the cards you listed, I would opt for the Msi ati hd 6670.

Nothing wrong with the others though. Just my personal preference at play...
 
auriga1000 said:
edit: sorry - not price range you were looking for.
Click to expand...

Gets a bit too much work for me unfortunately to go below R1500 :/

@OP - HD6670 or GT440 is probably your best bet. Both will be able to handle light gaming and do proper HD playback (as long as your player supports GPU offloading)

Differences in GDDR 3 and 5 is mostly power usage, but its nothing amazing, I wouldnt worry about it.
 
Ricksta123 said:
Hey people, would just like to ask a few questions, im looking for a budget graphics card for my spare pc,
something between about R500 - R800 , i will be just using it for bluray movies and the occassional gaming.

These are some options :

http://www.ikonicit.co.za/graphics-cards/nvidia/gt400-series/leadtek-nvidia-geforce-gt440-1gb-gddr3.html Leadtek gt 440
http://www.ikonicit.co.za/graphics-cards/nvidia/gt400-series/msi-n430gt-md1gd3-lp-oc.html Msi 430gt
http://www.pricecheck.co.za/offers/9752493/Asus+ENGT240_DI_1GD3_A+NVIDIA+GeForce+GT+240/ Asus gt240 a bit over budget
http://www.ikonicit.co.za/graphics-cards/ati/hd6000-series/msi-hd6670-1gb.html Msi ati hd 6670

Ive always used Nvidia and im not too sure about ati, would also like to know if you guys think its worth to pay the extra for gddr 5 instead of having a card with gddr 3, everyones help will be much appreciated. Many thanx
Click to expand...

Definitely the 6670.

Archer said:
Gets a bit too much work for me unfortunately to go below R1500 :/

@OP - HD6670 or GT440 is probably your best bet. Both will be able to handle light gaming and do proper HD playback (as long as your player supports GPU offloading)

Differences in GDDR 3 and 5 is mostly power usage, but its nothing amazing, I wouldnt worry about it.
Click to expand...

You're joking right?

DDR3 vs DDR5 makes a HUGE difference on a 128bit bus. DDR5 gives double the memory bandwidth which is a HUGE difference.
 
Qwikslver said:
You're joking right?
DDR3 vs DDR5 makes a HUGE difference on a 128bit bus. DDR5 gives double the memory bandwidth which is a HUGE difference.
Click to expand...

You're joking right? Do you really think that those GPUs are going to come anywhere close to saturating the memory channels? Especially during video playback... Everything in context.....

edit: if the focus was on gaming though... DDR5 will make a difference, about 15-20%
 
Last edited:
I've learned the hard way that the ATi drivers are just not up to scratch. For laptops, this is generally not a problem: people don't really play games on them, and the hardware manufacturer normally tests the crap out of them, so stability is at a higher priority than performance.

On desktops, however, I really cannot count the number of times the ATi driver has made me swear. NVIDIA's drivers are an order of magnitude more stable, but then again, their cards are more expensive for the same performance in general. I would really love it if the ATi drivers were good quality, but I've had major problems time and again: aside from crashes, I've had it that certain games develop glitches after UPGRADING a driver, and the installer tends to be shaky at best.

Then again, I am but one datapoint: some people have had the exact same troubles with NVIDIA cards!
 
bollie said:
I've learned the hard way that the ATi drivers are just not up to scratch. For laptops, this is generally not a problem: people don't really play games on them, and the hardware manufacturer normally tests the crap out of them, so stability is at a higher priority than performance.

On desktops, however, I really cannot count the number of times the ATi driver has made me swear. NVIDIA's drivers are an order of magnitude more stable, but then again, their cards are more expensive for the same performance in general. I would really love it if the ATi drivers were good quality, but I've had major problems time and again: aside from crashes, I've had it that certain games develop glitches after UPGRADING a driver, and the installer tends to be shaky at best.

Then again, I am but one datapoint: some people have had the exact same troubles with NVIDIA cards!
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with AMD drivers, I personally have never had a problem.
 
bollie said:
I've learned the hard way that the ATi drivers are just not up to scratch. For laptops, this is generally not a problem: people don't really play games on them, and the hardware manufacturer normally tests the crap out of them, so stability is at a higher priority than performance.

On desktops, however, I really cannot count the number of times the ATi driver has made me swear. NVIDIA's drivers are an order of magnitude more stable, but then again, their cards are more expensive for the same performance in general. I would really love it if the ATi drivers were good quality, but I've had major problems time and again: aside from crashes, I've had it that certain games develop glitches after UPGRADING a driver, and the installer tends to be shaky at best.

Then again, I am but one datapoint: some people have had the exact same troubles with NVIDIA cards!
Click to expand...

You need to use driversweeper when switching from nvidia to ati or vice versa. You probably had a conflict of some sort.
 
bollie said:
snip
Click to expand...

This is bollocks, to put it nicely.
When dealing with crossfire, yes there are some issues. But lately AMD have seriously stepped up their game wrt drivers, while Nvidia has been average at best (anyone remember cards getting killed in two seperate occasions?)
 
I would also reccommend the 6670. I have in general always been an ati user, but have also in the past used 250gt, 8800gt and 265gtx. I just have prefered the amd/ati combination (spyder platform or some such name) for price vs performance on a medium budget.

Good luck deciding.
 
Wow! thanx for all the reply's everyone, definately got some interesting tips here, so i rate im going to make the decision between the 6670 and gt440 : ) Im about to start a new thread though because im planning on just getting a whole new setup! thanx again people
 
Do you think those cards would perform well on bf3 while running on a i5 2500k , 4 gb 1333 ram ? i can up the buget to about a R1000
 
Core i3 530
4 gigs ram
HD4850

running it on 1280x720, mostly on low, couple of settings on medium and its about 40 fps most of the time. Sometimes dips to 25-ish, but it's playable. Just thought I'd add my 2c just so you know what you're looking at in terms of res/fps.
 
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