New card for E7200 CPU and 15 / 17 inch monitor

[sojuhasu]

Hi guys,
whenever I need to upgrade my graphic card, something that happens very rarely, I turn to this Forum. It has been six years since the last time that happened and now the time has come to finally get an upgrade.

My machine has the following spec :

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 - not OC-ed
4GB RAM
a soon to die Nvidia 6600 GT
a dead 15 inch monitor

I am on a very tight budget but luckily my gaming taste is not very high class either.The games that I really would like to play are :
Mass Effect 2
Dragon Age
Fallout 3
and Starcraft 2

So the optimization problem would be :
to get the highest fps possible on the afro-mentioned games on a 15 or 17 inch monitor using the cheapest card that I can buy right now. Don't forget that the CPU is rather old so it might constrain the GPU as well. Oh and I do not want AMD to go bankrupt so their products are greatly preferred to Nvidia's.

The ones that I've looked at due to their affordable prices are :
HD 4650 512 MB DDR2 -- real cheap, like it.
HD 4670 1GB DDR2 or DDR 3 -- which DDR type should I pick ?

Advices from people with more knowledge than me in this area is greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

[CurseTheSky]

What's your current power supply, and exact budget?

 

[sojuhasu]

The power supply is an OCZ SilentXStream 500 Watt
It has 2 hard drives, 1 DVD. I dont have an external drive.

The budget is 50 - 150 euro.
Although I'd probably aim for a 60-80 euro range.

 

[Qbah]

15" is usually 1024x768. 17" is 1280x1024. Check the deals on a HD5670. They're under 90€ here. A HD4670 (the only one actually...) is for 82€ where I live.

A HD5670 should be all the power you'll ever need for those low resolutions. Here's the article by Anand. And here's by TechPowerUp. Those two should give you all the insight you need.

You might also want to check PCGamesHardware for ME2 performance. Just add a bit to GT240 and there you go, HD5670

EDIT: Changed the TPU article, I meant to link to the 512MB one.

 

[Zargon]

55 or 5670?

easy on heat and power, DX11 so you arent already a gen back when you dont upgrade for 5 more years

 

[Marty502]

Stay away from DDR2 4670. Those are S-L-O-W.

That said, I'd get a 5670 instead.

Don't underestimate a E7200. That's a nice CPU.

 

[dflynchimp]

the 5670 is a very powerful cpu for the price, rivaling the 8800gt/9800gt in performance at a ridiculously low power consumption and load temp. It's probably one of the best mid range cards on my list since the old Radeon 9600XT

 

[frozentundra123456]

Stay away from DDR2 4670. Those are S-L-O-W.

That said, I'd get a 5670 instead.

Don't underestimate a E7200. That's a nice CPU.

Most 4670s are DDR3 and most 4650s are DDR2. Make sure you get DDR3 if you decide to buy either of those cards. I had a DDR2 HD4650 and was not at all happy with it. At the resolutions you are using, a 4670 would probably be sufficient, but the 5670 is quite a bit more powerful. Decide which you want based on prices in your area and what you are willing to spend.

I tend to want to support AMD also, but with a 500 watt power supply you could go with nVidia 9600GT or 9800GT. Neither supports DX11, but any of these low/mid range cards will struggle to handle DX11 anyway. The 9600GT is slightly faster than the 4670 and slower than the 5670. The 9800GT is comparable to or slightly faster than the 5670. These older nVidia cards may be cheaper than the 5670 which is quite new and somewhat overpriced in my opinion.

 

[blanketyblank]

Not sure what you can get in Euros since prices there seem higher than in the states, but Euros convert to more dollars.
However I'd say these are the cards to look at in order of least performance to higher performance (varies and somewhat subjective) and roughly corresponds to price:
8800 or 9800, HD4770, HD4850, 5750, 4870 = 5770.
Pricing varies slightly, but with good sales it should be something like this in US dollars:
8800/9800 (~75), 4770 (~85), 4850 (~90+ varies a lot now), 5750(~130), 4870(~130+), 5770(~150+).

Your PSU is plenty for any of these cards and at the resolutions you are playing at they should all do quite well. As far as I've seen 5670 is not a good price since it falls between 4850 and 5750 in terms of pricing, but it's behind the 4770 in terms of performance.

 

[sojuhasu]

I think I now have a pretty good idea about what kind of card I'm gonna buy. Will pretty much stick to a cheaper one ( somewhere in a 60-70 us$ range )... perhaps a 4670, unless you guys think it's a bad idea.

Anyways, once I chose the chip there are different brands to choose from:
Asus, Axle, Biostar, Digital Alliance, ECS, Forsa, Foxconn, MSI and about two dozens more.
Any recommendation on which to pick ?

Edit:
Oh, and correct me if I am wrong, but a 512 MB card should be enough for gaming on an 18 inch monitor, correct ?

 

[blanketyblank]

You know more important than the size is the resolution. I think we have all been assuming you will have a low resolution like 1280 x 1024 or maybe 1360 x 768.
You could be using a CRT with resolutions closer over 1600 x 1200.
If our assumptions however are correct yes 512 MB should be plenty and anything over a 4670 will work fine. I'd definitely look around first especially at the 4770 since it hovers around the same price and can get even cheaper when on sale.

 

[Concillian]

HD4850 IMO.

Currently using a 4850 on an OC'ed E7200 and not much slows it down. Really the only thing significantly faster than a 4850 is almost double the price. Not much beats it at it's current price point.

The HD5xxx series are all worse bang for the buck compared with the 4850 until you get into $200+ cards.

 

[yh125d]

ditto on 4850 512, save the rest to upgrade that ungodly small monitor O_O

 

[Zargon]

HD4850 IMO.

Currently using a 4850 on an OC'ed E7200 and not much slows it down. Really the only thing significantly faster than a 4850 is almost double the price. Not much beats it at it's current price point.

The HD5xxx series are all worse bang for the buck compared with the 4850 until you get into $200+ cards.

except for hot much cooler they run and they sip the watts.(which is important to some people, but he might not care).

plus instead of buying a 22" lcd or something he could score two more 17's and run eyefinity


EDIT: just saw hes looking at the 70 buck range, and no one should but a 5450 to game on, ever, so they are pretty much out!

 

[Qbah]

The HD4670 is shit. Really. It's old tech and just for a few € more you can get a HD5670. The difference here is literally ONE beer - and you get a cooler, faster card... But it's your choice in the end.