Best budget video card?

[Psygnosis]

Hey, all.
In the process of building a pc for myself, and I was wondering-
What's a good budget video card I can stick to?
I'm not a heavy gamer at all, just the occasional TF2 game or Counter Strike.
Or, if you prefer a certain brand, feel free to share.

[BigTroll]

Re: Best budget video card?

My friend has a Radeon 6870 I haven't kept up with the newer cards but it seems like a good card and sometimes under 150, otherwise the i heard good thinks about the kepler based geforce 660

[Psygnosis]

Re: Best budget video card?

A bit too expensive for my budget...
Any good cards under 80 bucks for an extremely casual gamer?
I apologize for not being quite that specific on price.

[mariushm]

Re: Best budget video card?

For games like Counterstrike and TF2, the integrated video cards in the latest AMD processors are good enough.
They run games like Skyrim at 50fps on 1680x1050 medium quality, even faster if you lower the resolution or quality. It's certainly playable even at 1920x1080 at lower framerate

See review here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6332/a...-review-part-1
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6347/a...desktop-part-2

The 5600k at 110$ is on par with the i3 3220 that's 130$ :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113281

You'd need a Socket FM2 motherboard to use this cpu, but they're cheap, from 55$:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eId=1&name=FM2

So you get cpu+mb+video card for 170-200$. Memory is just another 15-20$. You basically save 60-80$ on the video card this way, and if you feel it's not enough, you can always disable the integrated video card and install a separate one.


If you already bought processors or motherboard or you plan to reuse something you have, I'd say the lowest you should go for would be a Radeon 6670.

I see them for about 55$ and more :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on%20HD%206670

They're actually a bit less powerful than the integrated card the cpu above has but they're capable of playing games like Counterstrike quite well.

At the 80-100$ range, you can already go for a Radeon 7750, which is good enough to play most games on 1920x1080 with low to medium settings.

With ATI it's somewhat easy, within a series (5xxx, 6xxx) the performance increases with the number. Between series, they're just a bit shifted, I mean for example 7750 is equivalent to a 6670 (the one below 6750) ... so you can sort of aproximate the performance just by look at the numbers, the exact performance varies with the fan type on the card, the memory amount and type, default clocks used and so on but it's not a big performance difference.

With nVidia cards, it's hard to tell from their names and I didn't keep up looking at reviews online to know which model is better than others. I just know the 560ti, 660, (something like this) were good value for money.

ps. If you need even cheaper, say your budget, what (if any) parts you already have or can't be selected by me, if you prefer intel over amd or you don't care, and I'll try to build you an optimal configuration based on the budget.

[nish_pinto]

Re: Best budget video card?

6670 does well for the price.
Pros:

-> It runs fine on my old mother board (PCIE version 1) and 4 year old zebronics 400W PSU.
-> Easy to install
-> Can run all games released so far atleast in low-medium settings.
-> Prefer 'Sapphire' version as 'Aditya Infotech' (indian dealer of Sapphire) provides the best RMA service. Also you may get loads of free goodies in sapphireselectclub.

Cons:
-> Does not come with any cables or free goodies.

Tried running GTA4 (E7300 C2D processor,4GB DDR2) and it gave acceptable frame rates in medium settings (if GTA4 is patched to latest version).

Verdict:
Unless you are on a very tight budget go for atleast the DDR5 version of 6670 or HD7750 or 6750. HD7750 is 1.5-2.5k higher but requires less power and will give huge performance boost.

[Psygnosis]

Re: Best budget video card?

Thank you all for your input. It really means a lot.
It looks like I'm going towards the 6670 as per mariushm's advice, since I already have my motherboard and processor picked out, and the card's specs seem to fit best for my needs.
Thanks, man. I'll be sure to PM you if I need some more help with the build.

With nish's suggestion, I think I'll use Sapphire, as the reviews from newegg were top notch for their cards, so I'll give them a whirl.

Gigabyte too seems to have made a nice 6670, so that's always another option. They make good motherboards, and their cards seem to be built well, as well.

Any other suggestions are welcome. I have an idea on what to use, but more input is always appreciated.