GFX card upgrade - which one?

[Firefly]

One of my B'day pressies was a £50 amazon voucher.

One thing I'm considering is a gfx card.

Sapphire HD4650 1GB DDR2 PCI-E
or
Gigabyte GV-R465OC-1GI Radeon HD 4650 Graphics Card (1GB, ATX, DVI-I)
seem to be good.
This is to replace my two sli 8600gt so would I notice any improvment?
Any thoughts please.
thanks

 

[SkaarjMaster]

Go for the Nvidia one. Or just go for the one you can afford but not barely afford, the one that's not the fastest but the one that's fast enough for a while, the one that someone at a computer store suggests and not the one suggested online because they said it's really cool, the one that futureproofs your computer but doesn't futureproof your mortgage/rent, there can be only one.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

If you can afford the GeForce 560 Ti, get it.

If you need something cheaper get a GTX 460.

 

[Deathmaker]

What's the rest of your system like? There's no point in suggesting stuff like the 560 if you're running an old single core Athlon, etc.

Out of those two card linked, I'd go for the Gigabyte due to the fact it has GDDR2 rather than the cheaper, slower DDR2 that's on the Sapphire.

 

[Firefly]

Cheers guys.
It needs to be under £50

Will I notice a difference?

Specs:
Processor
Model : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
Mainboard : ALiveNF5SLI-1394

Chipset
Model : AMD Athlon 64 / Opteron HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 840MHz (1.68GHz)

Total Memory : 2GB DDR2
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 390MHz (780MHz)

EDIT just recieved more b'day money. total is now £100.

 

[Capt.Toilet]

Cheers guys.
It needs to be under £50

Will I notice a difference?

Specs:
Processor
Model : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
Mainboard : ALiveNF5SLI-1394

Chipset
Model : AMD Athlon 64 / Opteron HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Front Side Bus Speed : 2x 840MHz (1.68GHz)

Total Memory : 2GB DDR2
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 390MHz (780MHz)

EDIT just recieved more b'day money. total is now £100.

You will get a bottleneck with that processor, especially if you go with a card from 6 months ago. I would go with something a little smaller like a geforce 2xx or the ATI equivalent(sorry I am not familiar with ATI).

 

[NRG]

You probably wont see a huge difference, depending on how well your 8600s scale. For reference, a 4670 is roughly the speed of a 3870, which are slrightly slower than a 9800/8800GT/8800GSO. A 4650 will put you even further behind a 8800. You'd be a lot better off saving a little more and grabbing something like a 5770 or 5750. Even if your CPU would bottleneck 5750, you will still notice much better performance than a measly 46xx. If you want to remove the bottleneck just drop a $100 Phenom II in your motherboard some day and it should feel pretty lively and modern again.

You will get a bottleneck with that processor

Respectfully disagree. The 45xx and 46xx cards are considerably slower and less demanding than their 48xx brethren.

 

[Firefly]

cheers guys
all useful info

 

[Capt.Toilet]

Respectfully disagree. The 45xx and 46xx cards are considerably slower and less demanding than their 48xx brethren.

That comment I made was if he decided to pursue the geforce 460/560 or ATI equivalent. Perhaps I should have worded it better.

 

[Firefly]

thanks guys.
I went for this one.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I have a 5750. It's pretty good but not amazing. It's about the same as an 8800GT 1gb.

 

[Firefly]

That's good to hear. I'm not expecting £400 worth of performance.
Well it is an improvement over my old 86s

(I know this site isn't an exact science)

 

[inferyes]

I have a 5850 1gb. I have yet to find a game that will cause it to go below 60fps.

 

[Kantham]

When you have my PC: All the cards are the same.
Makes you think more than twice about getting a video card upgrade, sometimes.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

So a Geforce GT210 is the same as a Geforce GT580 on your computer?

 

[Kantham]

Everything.

I've tried and RMA'ed both a 460GTX and a 5850. Both performed exactly like my 8800 GTS 320 MB.

 

[Bi()ha2arD]

What CPU?

My GTX470 btought no performance boost over my 8800GTX because my 3.5GHz C2D was just too crappy. Now with an i7 2600K it pwns.

 

[Kantham]

Q6600. But I might get an entirely new computer eventually.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

Ah, you went ATI! Hehe, when I commented earlier I was in a hurry and all I saw was Sapphire and I figured the other one was Nvidia.

 

[Firefly]

Also, back then, my budget was tighter.
Future proofing past the cpu is a good idea anyway.
ATI certainly seem better at this price range.