Need handy videocard help! Created 13 years ago2011-02-24 10:38:03 UTC by Skals

Hi guys! I'm going to buy a new video card, my current one is a peace of **, it keeps giving me blue screens and it almost killed my pc not so long ago, the current one I have is ATI RADEON HD 2400 (it's shit).

Anyway, these are my specs:I also have a 500W power supply.

I'm not really good with computers hence I'm not sure what kind of video card I can buy or not, I'm not looking at anything too flashy, would prefer if it's not above 100 pounds, plus my current one is enough for me even as bad as it is, so I wouldn't go for one of those latest 200 pound ones. Also I'd rather not go for ATI again because of, well you read the first part didn't you.

I had my eyes set on this:
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/product-geforce-gts-450-uk.html#buynow

It's quite new infact and a probably a lot better than my current one, and only about 80-90 pounds, now that's a nice price.

What do you guys think I should get? Or what would be the best choice for my current PC? Again, I'm not really good at this PC stuff so help!

There's no reason to ignore Ati. Seriously, most of the big problems are over with them.
I'd recommend buying an Ati Radeon H5750. The power supply is fine, even with such a video card your pc won't exceed more than 250-300W probably(full thrust). I think it's not above 100 pounds there( in my country it's 96 I think).

But if you want Nvidia, somebody else will answer you :).

About those BSODs, have you updated your drivers regularly?

It's the updates fucking up the video card.

Funny, I was just getting ready to ask the same question....lol

My card is ok and does the job overall but it's still an older card and needs to be replaced. 6600 NVidia series with a whopping 256 Memory.

No need to clap, I know....

Anybody suggest a good replacement for this, keeping with NVidia and possibly a little more memory. I don't need to break the bank but I do want a nicer card that can handle Left4Dead a little better.

Mafia II bombed on me the other day so I know it's time to upgrade.

May need to upgrade the 450w Power Supply as well...it was a warranty replacement for a 500w that went out. That's all they had in stock. I know some of the newer cards need more juice.

Look, it's simple with these power supplies:

If it's a generic grey power supply, change it. Or don't. You'll regret later.
But if it has a known brand on it(generally doesn't have the generic grey look), don't. Even if it's 450w, it is not necessary. It will cope with your system.

hey i got that gts 450 (palit gts 450 512 mb ddr5) and L4D works well (60-150~ fps)
http://i.imgur.com/l7doC.jpg

i can also play starcraft II - medium details

ps. havent played l4d 2!!

Low FPS for a GTS450 lol

Mine 9600GSO 1GB DDR2 256bit pulls out 220FPS - 300FPS out of CSS (everything on max).

maybe baby ;o
i think my gts450 could be slow because i didnt remove old, ati drivers

So, any ideas on what I should buy?
Stojke, why are you comparing a 5 year old game to a 1 year old game?

Btw, the one I was talking about is different from yours ninja defuse. Your one is 512mb the one I talked about is 1gb?

i was told on a hardware forum that there would not be a difference between 512 and 1024 because 1GB is for higher resolutions and that gts450 wouldnt hang anything over 1920x1080

If it's a generic grey power supply, change it. Or don't. You'll regret later.
But if it has a known brand on it(generally doesn't have the generic grey look), don't.

That's really not a very reliable criteria for deciding whether a power supply is any good or not... there are plenty of power supplies housed in gray casings that are perfectly decent.

i was told on a hardware forum that there would not be a difference between 512 and 1024 because 1GB is for higher resolutions and that gts450 wouldnt hang anything over 1920x1080

You can store more and higher-resolution textures in 1 gibibyte than in 512 megabytes.

That's really not a very reliable criteria for deciding whether a power supply is any good or not... there are plenty of power supplies housed in gray casings that are perfectly decent.

I know. But summarize a better criteria if this is not a good summary :P.

Anyway, I checked my old PSU( a grey one) with the multimeter and the voltage varies with even 0.15-0.20 V. The "branded" almost doesn't vary at all.

Getting a better PSU means the following:

• More stable voltage ratings (on idle and under load)
• Higher amps per voltage rail (possibly the MOST IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW)
• Longer lifetime
• Higher efficiency rating which means the watts you're told are the watts that are actually there

Look on the side of your current PSU. There should be a sticker with some voltage ratings.

Under the 12V rail, there should be a number of amps. How many amps does it say? This is the sole determinant in if you can upgrade your video card without needing a new power supply.

If the amps are high enough, you're fine. If not, you putting a new card in could mean blue screening, system failure, or shutting down under any type of video load.

Also, as per video ram needed: What resolution do you plan on running at? More video ram simply means higher resolution of textures / monitor resolution, honestly. The higher you go, the higher the resolution capable.

u should avoid these PSUs:
Codegen, Megabajt, Rubikon, Tronje, Ropla, Colorsit, Logic, Akyga, Procomp, Tracer, Mustang, PowerComp, Fever, Impet, Mercury, Modecom Feel (I, II)

How did this get to be a power supply issue? lol

It was a sub-question but I think Luke got it covered nicely.

And I don't buy computers that are already put together.

I had a nice Ultra 500w power supply but it went south like I said. I had that one under warranty but they couldn't match it because they didn't have a 500w so I got a 450w Ultra. I was just asking because I am considering upgrading the video card.

I looked at the GTS450 but didn't know how good it was. I don't think I would need anything over 512k but it would be nice to have it.

Be nice to have this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6809990&CatId=4044

Who pay for stuff like this? Graphic Designers?

ps. my gts 450 works fine with my "Fortron 400W FSP400-60GHN"

Low FPS for a GTS450 lol

Mine 9600GSO 1GB DDR2 256bit pulls out 220FPS - 300FPS out of CSS (everything on max).

what processor?>

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se
archTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6809990&
CatId=4044

Who pay for stuff like this? Graphic Designers?

hackers and crackers

So guys, why did you start talking about power supplies? Please help me find the best video-card with the best bang for buck for me! no more than 100 pounds pls.
Btw, as far as the resolution goes, I have a 24inch widescreen monitor, atm im running at 1920x1080.

Also, my powersupply is not grey, it is blue! xD, and it's got really nice wires protected by some kind of overlaying material, doesn't look like crap. I think it's like 500-550W, but I'm not sure about the amps, I'll check that out tomorrow, gtg for today.

hackers and crackers smile -

Tell me more please....

So guys, why did you start talking about power supplies?

i was told that a sucky PSU may bulletstorm a GPU

Tell me more please....

i heard that u can use the power of GPU to crack

"They are using the processing power of Nvidia GPU's to break through WPA and WPA2 encryption. Their methods are 10,000% faster "

@skals
maybe: GeForce 9800 GT

ps. i am going to remove unsused ati drivers i cant believe that 9600GSO has 200+fps in cs:source with full details (more than my gts 450 )

Everything you need to know when buying a power supply:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Power_Supply_Unit

And to compare performance of video cards against each other (then it's just a matter of choosing the best one that suits your budget):
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Note that those video card benchmarks are ONE metric only, but are usually a reasonably good representation of the performance of video cards when compared to each other.

how can GeForce 9800 GT be better than GTS 450? Maybe ninja defuse doesn't have the latest drivers installed, or some problems with his pc?

i guess u need a little better processor for that gts 450

my amd x2 245 (2,9ghz) blocks somehow gts 450

i am going to ask my friend about hardware

@ Ninja dude: Intel i5 750

@up
he has E8200

@stojke
ps. could u get a gts 450 and check out how does it work with that i5???

lol, ur asking him to buy a 85 pound video card to check something for u?

no just borrow or something ;p
but it would be nice to buy, you only live once

What do you guys think of this card?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Palit-SONIC-nVIDIA-Geforce-Graphics/dp/B003VJW0WS/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1298659240&sr=1-1

I can invest 30 more pounds to get something a lot better than that GTS 450.

Computers are not as logical as they sound...

Graphics cards:
More RAM doesn't make them faster.
Clock & Memory MHz doesn't directly relate to performance.
Brand has nothing to do with performance - if you buy a cheap, slow card it will be cheap and slow.

PSUs:
The colour or the wattage don't make a PSU good or suitable. A grey 430W PSU of mine outperformed a blue anodised 550W PSU.

Some things you can go by are the price, brand, whether they have PFC (active preferrably) and also that the efficiency is at least 80%. Good brands in my experience are Seasonic, Hiper, Coolermaster, Jeantech, Antec, Corsair. I normally go with Antec as they are reliable and not overpriced. If you like loud bangs and rebuilding PCs then you should spend less than ?40 on a PSU.

<tangent>CPU speeds are not related to how many GHz they have</tangent>

As for graphics card suggestions, my spare PC has had an ATi 4670 and a geforce 9800GT, ?55 and ?80 respectively (a year or two ago). Both did a fine job at Oblivion and LAN games such as HL2DM, GTA:IV, L4D and BF2, although only at 1280x1024. GTA:IV wasn't maxed out, but for ?55 I was impressed. At 1920x1080 you will need a faster card, but you get more for ?100 now than 2 years ago.

For choosing graphics cards I always go to http://www.tomshardware.com and check out the graphics charts to see how the different cards perform, and then pick some cards I like the performance of and check their prices, see which ones work out cheapest for the performance.

Can't proofread what I wrote or expand on anything, gotta go now!

@Ninja

Well i would gladly do tests, if any one i know had a gts 450 xD

My bro has GTX 480 (he would rather jump off a bridge than let me test it xD )
And my friends have ATI, what noobs

Also Commieman did a pretty good explanation there, cool.

Skals has some crazy ass Motherboard / JW-IG31
ive never heard of that manufacturer O-o

hey i think that might help u, translated by google ;p

http://translate.google.pl/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=pl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.pcformat.pl%2FPolecane-karty-graficzne-dla-graczy-luty-t&act=url

Pretty good Polish site

Also 1 Euro = 4 Zlot

Lots of info!

Also as for my Nvidia:
GPU 650Mhz, 1GB DDR2 256Bit, Shader 1650MHz and core 400MHz.

Its a Gainward golden edition

Because you had a shitty card means that everything else in that selection is shitty.

Oh, hello, I'll be over here with my HD 4650, still maxing out crysis [At a low resolution].

Every one knows ati is gay.

Nvidia is cool.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/07/12/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460-graphics-card-review/12

I think I'll go for GTX 460, due to that above post.

Do yourself a favor and before you buy anything look at your PSU ratings.

I think GTX 460 is overkill for you.

If you still have a CPU that is several generations old and paltry memory, why install a fast GPU to pair with the older hardwares?

A GTX 260 is the most economical way to upgrade an older system.

I have a GTX 460, but it's combined with a Core i7 and 8 GB of memory.

The latest generation of GPU is GTX 580, and that's top of the line.

I agree with Satchmo and Luke...

I am doing my comparisons now but as Satchmo stated it is pointless to buy a top of the line card if the system can't maximize it. And this goes along with what Luke said. Check the PSU rating!

And the older boards can't maximize PCI Express cards. You can use the card with no problems but usually at half the bandwidth. I read it really shouldn't matter all that much but senseless to buy more speed than you really need.

I think I am going to go with a nicer card but I am also going to upgrade my motherboard soon because DDR1 sucks. Bout time to upgrade everything anyways. I really want to just win a nice gaming rig. lol.

Apparently nvidia doesn't sell GTX 260 anymore, can't find it anywhere besides used.

Nvida has never really 'sold' any of their cards... Manufacturers and vendors sell them. Although you probably can buy direct from Nvidia, you get what I mean. And what the hell is wrong with used? Idiots overpricing the card?

Used can mean no warranty / limited warranty. And Warranties are nice.

I boughed my card as a used card for 20$

Works perfectly, even the fan is silent. Gainward ftw.

^ get me one of those plx.

Edit: I'll turn off pc to check what power supply mine is.

Right, I've gots myself this PSU; it's an FSP, I checked some site, apparently it's listed as a top quality PSU company.I taught it was 500-550W, apparently it's only 460W and 500W Peak.
Note: It would probably be 1 or 2 years old now since I bought it a while back, maybe I should get a new PSU too before buying something like GTX 460?

Probably wouldn't hurt to upgrade the PSU. You are probably right on the line. Wouldn't hurt to get a 500 or better.

And why can't you find the card? Do you mean you can't find it in the UK?

Try Amazon.com and TigerDirect.com. I didn't have a problem finding new at either and Amazon has a few used ones but they aren't much cheaper.

I can confirm that FSP is indeed a good PSU manufacturer.

Nvidia recommends a 450W or better PSU for the GTX 460, and this minimum value is always much higher than what you actually need. You have a 500W PSU, which exceeds even the inflated Nvidia minimum.

Also, forum posts suggest that the GTX 460 draws a maximum of 14A on the 12V rail. Your PSU supplies 17.5A on each 12V rail, meaning that you have more than enough to run a GTX 460 on it.

Knowing this, I wouldn't buy a new PSU. The one you have now will run a GTX 460 perfectly well.

And I know this is the wrong forum for this but who know a good lcd monitor that handles burn-in better than the piece of crap I have now.

Which is a Sceptre LCD....

I can't map for long before I get an incredible amount of burn-in. I fix it with the old black and white pic switch technique.

Any suggestions on a monitor that can handle this sort of thing?

Hm cool, I'll go for the GTX 460 then! thanks for the help. Also kdunivan, I'm not going to buy a GTX 260 for 100 pounds USED when i can get a palit GTX 460 for 130 pounds, and don't even think about showing me those American websites, I'm not going to pay 30 pounds or more for international shipping.

woops doublepost.

I still think a GTX 460 is over kill for the rest of your computer, but do whatever you want.