Looking to upgrade from an aging nVidia 7800GT on the cheap.

[blurredvision]

I'm thinking about finally upgrading my 3+ year old 7800GT card, but I don't want to spend a lot of money. I obviously haven't kept up on what cards have come out in the past 3 years, so would you mind recommending an upgrade that would give me the best bang for my buck? I would like to find something for under $100 if possible, it doesn't have to run the latest games at top settings or anything. I just want a little more horsepower under the hood.

Thanks!

 

[Lonyo]

What CPU do you have?
I ask that even though it doesn't really matter, an HD4830 would be a nice upgrade for you pretty much no matter what. (and <$100).
I went from a 7800GT to an HD4850 and found a nice improvement, especially in games like Bioshock.

 

[blurredvision]

I'm running an E6600 overclocked to 2.7GHz. 2GB of RAM, although I may upgrade that as well to 4GB. I've been out of PC gaming for a long while, but wouldn't mind to wade back in with a few games here and there. I'll check out the HD4830. If I can get a couple of recommendations, I'll research the cards myself.

 

[kmmatney]

I upgraded to a HD4830 - its been nice so far. I use CCC to overclock it past HD4850 speeds. It isn't quite as fast as an HD4850 when running at the same speeds (but is if you go a little higher than HD4850 speeds) but the overclock is dead easy. It's a fast card without overclocking, though, so at stock speeds its a great bang-for-buck card. The HD4850 is also a nice upgrade for a bit more money.

From the NVidia side, you can get a 9600GT for $85 (Zotac brand). You have to go to a 9800GT (starting around $110+ for cheapest card) to get better performance , or the 9800GTX+ ($150 and up).

I'm cheap - I went for the HD4830 for around $80 after rebate, and did the easy overclock, to get close to HD4850 and 9800GTX+ performance.

 

[blurredvision]

I did find a HD4850 for $120 after MIR at newegg, so I might look at something like that. I might look for a used one as well, if they can be found significantly cheaper.

 

[kmmatney]

From what I read, the HD4850 and the 9800GTX+ trade blows on all the gaming benchmarks, so either one is a good choice. It will be hard to find any of these used at a good price - I had trouble anyways. $120 is a good price for a HD4850.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: kmmatney
From what I read, the HD4850 and the 9800GTX+ trade blows on all the gaming benchmarks, so either one is a good choice. It will be hard to find any of these used at a good price - I had trouble anyways.

Any particular reason? Are they older cards and just fading away, or have they come out recently and not many people selling them?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: kmmatney
From what I read, the HD4850 and the 9800GTX+ trade blows on all the gaming benchmarks, so either one is a good choice. It will be hard to find any of these used at a good price - I had trouble anyways.

Any particular reason? Are they older cards and just fading away, or have they come out recently and not many people selling them?

The latter, I'm sure. They're good video cards and not a whole lot of people are looking to trade up. I'm guessing many of those who do want more performance are buying second cards for SLI/Crossfire because both of them scale really well with that kind of setup.

You may have better luck with 3850/3870 cards, but honestly it's not worth it when you can get a new 4830 for as little as $80 after rebate. The 4830's low price makes everything else seem like a bad deal.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

You could always snag a 4650 for $50 if you are really on a budget. It compares to the 3850, just a little bit less powerful. Either way it stomps the 7800GT while using less then half of the power.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The HD4650 is more of a competitor to the 9500GT and 8600GT/S, while being slightly faster. The HD3850 (512MB) is much faster than any of those cards and competes with the HD4670 in some cases, but the HD4650 is still a pretty good value.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...70-and-HD-4650/?page=8

But if you get one that doesn't have the reference GDDR2 memory, and instead has higher clocked GDDR3 or 4, then the HD4650's performance is much closer to the HD3850 and the HD4670:

http://www.techpowerup.com/rev...hire/HD_4650_OC/6.html

Notice in the same game, with different memory (and core) clocks, the HD4650 goes from being slower than the 9500GT to considerably faster.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
The HD4650 is more of a competitor to the 9500GT and 8600GT/S, while being slightly faster. The HD3850 (512MB) is much faster than any of those cards and competes with the HD4670 in some cases, but the HD4650 is still a pretty good value.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...70-and-HD-4650/?page=8

But if you get one that doesn't have the reference GDDR2 memory, and instead has higher clocked GDDR3 or 4, then the HD4650's performance is much closer to the HD3850 and the HD4670:

http://www.techpowerup.com/rev...hire/HD_4650_OC/6.html

Notice in the same game, with different memory (and core) clocks, the HD4650 goes from being slower than the 9500GT to considerably faster.

Look at the techpowerup benchmarks you linked to. The 4650 beats the 3850 at decent resolutions. Not to mention AA being enabled.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I guess you didn't read my last line, now did you? They are using an overclocked HD4650 with much, much faster GDDR3 memory as opposed to the GDDR2 or lower clocked memory of typical/reference HD4650s. Reference HD4650s will be slower than an HD3850, if you couldn't get the point of my post.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: kmmatney
From what I read, the HD4850 and the 9800GTX+ trade blows on all the gaming benchmarks, so either one is a good choice. It will be hard to find any of these used at a good price - I had trouble anyways.

Any particular reason? Are they older cards and just fading away, or have they come out recently and not many people selling them?

Also the price they're getting to is coming pretty close to that threshold where people might figure its not worth the hassle, or they don't feel like they're getting enough back for what they paid. Another consideration is that many of these cards are still very capable parts and would fit well in a 2nd pc or better yet, an HTPC capable of HD playback. Finally, there's the possibility with Nvidia cards to run the older part as a dedicated PhysX card. I'd agree with the others though, there's a lot of nice options in that $100 range.