Budget video card for minecraft/LEGO games?

[Shyatic]

Just trying to find something relatively inexpensive so my kids can play Minecraft and the Lego games reasonably. I don't think they care about having MAX settings, but I'd like it to be able to play more than just that... perhaps some other games at low detail settings?

Thoughts? And a link would be super if you can include it Figuring around $50 for the card if that's doable, but you tell me...

Thanks!

 

[Seba]

Try to get a GTX 750 Ti 2GB. Maybe a second hand one, to stay close to your $50 budget.

 

[SPBHM]

what about the rest of the PC specs?

a lot of $50 cards are not really a significant enough upgrade over some of the current IGPs

 

[Madpacket]

Don't buy a $50 dollar graphics card unless you're looking second hand. Lego games are not very demanding but Minecraft is terribly optimised and needs a decent CPU for larger worlds.

OP, to better help we need the rest of the PC specs.

How much RAM, what current CPU are you running, what's the native screen resolution etc.

 

[Mike64]

Try to get a GTX 750 Ti 2GB. Maybe a second hand one, to stay close to your $50 budget.

With prices for that card even on sale/after rebates rarely going below $90-95, and usually higher, I'm guessing they aren't selling for as low as $50 even used...

Unless the OP's PC has a really undersized PSU and no PCI/E power connector, I can't think of a good reason for going with a 750 Ti...

 

[Seba]

Unless the OP's PC has a really undersized PSU and no PCI/E power connector, I can't think of a good reason for going with a 750 Ti...

I suppose a R9 Fury X is not going to happen any time soon for $50, even second hand.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I have a 750Ti 2GB in my sons 3570k rig, he uses it mostly for emulators and minecraft. It runs pretty well. Prior to that he had a 650 vanilla and it struggled a bit.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Well, it's an older generation card -- but it's incredibly powerful for a brand new card for $49 after rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=powercolor_radeon-_-14-131-682-_-Product

Just be aware, it needs 2 x 6 pin power plugs to run. You also can only run Catalyst drivers with this card -- Crimson drivers aren't supported on the DirectX11 era Radeons. It is a monster card, though -- 1408 stream processors, GDDR5 memory, 256 bit memory bus, 128 Z Rop Units..... It's totally overkill for Minecraft/Lego games.... But you won't find a more powerful card at this price point.

I bought one for a cheap Steam Machine -- it's a fun little card.

 

[MrTeal]

Well, it's an older generation card -- but it's incredibly powerful for a brand new card for $49 after rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=powercolor_radeon-_-14-131-682-_-Product

Just be aware, it needs 2 x 6 pin power plugs to run. You also can only run Catalyst drivers with this card -- Crimson drivers aren't supported on the DirectX11 era Radeons. It is a monster card, though -- 1408 stream processors, GDDR5 memory, 256 bit memory bus, 128 Z Rop Units..... It's totally overkill for Minecraft/Lego games.... But you won't find a more powerful card at this price point.

I bought one for a cheap Steam Machine -- it's a fun little card.

That is a pretty good deal if you have the power supply for it even if it is a 1GB model. It's about as fast as a 750Ti, at half or less the cost.

 

[Mike64]

I suppose a R9 Fury X is not going to happen any time soon for $50, even second hand.

Why are you comparing a tricycle (OK, maybe a 3-speed) to a racing bike?

The GTX 750 Ti simply isn't that great a card even in the abstract; it's only real advantage is comparative capability for its low power consumption (and that only for the single-fan versions.) And the difference in power consumption isn't enough to worry about heat or running cost, if you have a PCIE power connector available or are willing to use an adapter. If you don't have a 6-pin connector or have a relatively under-sized PSU, it's worth looking at, but even then it's still overpriced, especially this long after its original release...

 

[RussianSensation]

Why are you comparing a tricycle (OK, maybe a 3-speed) to a racing bike?

The GTX 750 Ti simply isn't that great a card even in the abstract; it's only real advantage is comparative capability for its low power consumption (and that only for the single-fan versions.)

Some people on this forum will always recommend NV, even if it's the worst buy. Once you see a pattern with people who ignore price/performance and do not provide objective GPU recommendations, well you just skip that advice and move on. 750Ti was always overpriced and under-performing. Today, this still remains true.

Used -> HD7870/7950/7970/HD7970 1Ghz are all miles better (on the NV side, it's possible to find 670/680 under $100 but Kepler got crippled and those cards usually have 2GB of VRAM).

New -> R7 370 = $110

 

[Shyatic]

Thanks for the advice -- I will have a SB i5 at 3.1GHz, 8GB of RAM with an SSD and discrete power (will have the PCI rails).

Anything else to clarify?

 

[MrTeal]

Thanks for the advice -- I will have a SB i5 at 3.1GHz, 8GB of RAM with an SSD and discrete power (will have the PCI rails).

Anything else to clarify?

If you have a power supply that can handle the card, you're not going to find anything better than that 6950 new near your budget. You'd probably have to search pretty hard and wait for a good deal to even find something as good as it used for $50.

 

[wilds]

Buying a legacy GPU in 2016 is a bad move.

R9 370 or GTX 950.

 

[MrTeal]

Buying a legacy GPU in 2016 is a bad move.

R9 370 or GTX 950.

Why is it a bad move? His budget is $50, that card is $50. A 950 is $145, a 370 is $110.
That card is more than enough to play Minecraft and Lego games, and much, much more.
In fact, the 370 (1024 Pitcairn shaders @ 975MHz) is essentially an overclocked 7850 (1024 Pitcairn shaders @ 860MHz)

That gap has likely increased in newer games, but it won't be a massive difference especially if he can unlock the shaders in that card as both my 1GB 6950s did.

I still have one of those sitting in my HTPC, they're still excellent cards and $50 is a great deal.

 

[wilds]

Then purchase a used 7850. Buying a GPU that is not officially supported with 1 GB of VRAM is going to age horribly. Why buy unsupported old hardware that has questionable support in the near future?

The 500 and 6000 series suck a lot more power and have really poor performance compared to the new low-end GPU's.

 

[MrTeal]

Then purchase a used 7850. Buying a GPU that is not officially supported with 1 GB of VRAM is going to age horribly. Why buy unsupported old hardware that has questionable support in the near future?

1. You can't even buy a used 2GB 7850 for $50. The cheapest used 2GB I could find that sold on eBay in the last 3 months was $65, most sold in the $70-$80 range.
2. No warranty on a used card, crappy hassles if it's defective or artifacts.

The 500 and 6000 series suck a lot more power and have really poor performance compared to the new low-end GPU's.

BS. Depends how you define low end, but please point out which card in this list of cards up to twice the price of the 6950 that even matches the performance of a 6950.
http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#sort=a8&page=1&X=6419,10000
As for power:

The 6950 pulls 36 more than a 7850 under a gaming load, that's 37.5% more power than a 7850 and the 7850 has 40% better performance per watt. It's not nothing, but if you have the power supply to handle it 36 watts is hardly a dealbreaker.


Outside of all that, the guy said $50 and want to have his kids play Minecraft and Lego games. They might move on to bigger games eventually, which the 6950 will be able to handle as well as or better than anything else for $50. Maybe they'll eventually play GTA6 under DX12, but by that time even a 950 or 370 would be reduced to low details and framerates.

 

[wilds]

I'm seeing a lot of 7850 and 7870's for around $50 on Ebay. I cannot in good conscience recommend any of the 6000 series in 2016. The prices for both of these cards has essentially bottomed out and it is questionable to purchase a card that is slower, half the VRAM, and no longer supported.

OP also stated there will be other games played. The kids get bored of older games and will want to try newer ones with their friends. The 7850 will be supported for quite awhile whereas the 6950 is not.

I'm sure the 6950 will remain a useable GPU for quite some time, but it is becoming hard to guarantee it will run well on newer games. Heck, I even see the much more powerful 7970 less than $100. These cheap ebay AMD cards are probably quite worn though.

On Amazon, the 7850 is cheaper than the 6950.

 

[MrTeal]

I'm seeing a lot of 7850 and 7870's for around $50 on Ebay. I cannot in good conscience recommend any of the 6000 series in 2016. The prices for both of these cards has essentially bottomed out and it is questionable to purchase a card that is slower, half the VRAM, and no longer supported.

OP also stated there will be other games played. The kids get bored of older games and will want to try newer ones with their friends. The 7850 will be supported for quite awhile whereas the 6950 is not.

I'm sure the 6950 will remain a useable GPU for quite some time, but it is becoming hard to guarantee it will run well on newer games. Heck, I even see the much more powerful 7970 less than $100. These cheap ebay AMD cards are probably quite worn though.

On Amazon, the 7850 is cheaper than the 6950.

Links to any of them? I don't see any 2GB 7850s (or 1 GB ones for that matter) for $50 on eBay. On Amazon, the cheapest new one is $200 and the cheapest used one is $66. Saying the 6950 on Amazon is more expensive is kind of missing the point. The whole reason to get this 6950 is that it's a great deal and far and away the fastest card available at $50 right now. No one's saying 6950s in general are better.

Once again, you're comparing a new card with a 2 year warranty and 30 day return policy that's right on his budget to a used card of similar performance that is 30% over budget, with no warranty, of a generation that was in very many cases driven 100% 24/7 coin mining.

 

[MrTeal]

Thanks for the advice -- I will have a SB i5 at 3.1GHz, 8GB of RAM with an SSD and discrete power (will have the PCI rails).

Anything else to clarify?

I have a SB i5-2500k that's running @ 4.2GHz, 8GB DDR3-1600 and an SSD that's sitting as my wife's desktop. I just tossed my 1GB 6950 in there as a reference, and pulled 63.6 FPS average and 44.0 FPS minimums on High Settings, 1080P. 1080P Ultra (but with Tess off) was 39 min 49.5 ave. Unfortunately TR is the most current game installed on that system, but even reasonably current games are more than playable at 1080P and decent settings on a $50 card.

 

[Blue_Max]

Just my 2¢... I'm not a fan of buying used video cards. Of all the things I've bought used and had fail, video cards were by far the worst. The hotter & higher wattage the card, the more likely to fail as well. (For that reason, I would only consider a 7750/R7-250 or GTX 750 ot TI used... and still only if very cheap.)

If you're not buying NEW new, then at least get a refurb from a shop that takes returns if it fails.

At least I know the games you mention will run on the IGP you currently have (pretty poorly, but runnable.) I'm a big fan of the GTX 750 and TI if you can find a deal brand new. The GTX 740 is still good too - but it's all about what deals are available to you.

I can't suggest american shop deals, I only know the Canadian ones.

 

[Seba]

That HD 6950 1GB card for $70 ($50 after rebate) would be a mistake, mostly because the limited 1GB VRAM, but also because of its huge power requirements for such a low performance card (by today's standards) and because the support is discontinued (meaning no new drivers), as already stated by others in this thread.

I still think that a second hand GTX 750 Ti 2GB would be the best option with such a limited budget. Maybe it can not be found at $50, but certainly it should not be more expensive than a used R7 370 2GB (or a used HD 7850 2GB - which is basically the same thing as R7 370 2GB).

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Buying a legacy GPU in 2016 is a bad move.

R9 370 or GTX 950.

Well, yeah -- obviously buying a card that is 2 to 3 times his budget would be better. But that is way more than he was talking about spending.

 

[MeldarthX]

you can find 7850s 1G and 7870s G1 for under 50....the 2G version around 50-70 dollars;

Now if you don't want used; 370 is best card in price range for 110.

Yep its a jump; but for 50 he's going to pretty much need to go used for best card in that price range. if he's going to stick to 50ish dollars; 7850/7870 2g is best there.

 

[MrTeal]

you can find 7850s 1G and 7870s G1 for under 50....the 2G version around 50-70 dollars;

Now if you don't want used; 370 is best card in price range for 110.

Yep its a jump; but for 50 he's going to pretty much need to go used for best card in that price range. if he's going to stick to 50ish dollars; 7850/7870 2g is best there.

Can you link to a 7850 or 7870 available shipped for $50 or under?