I want to buy a new video-card

[psi43]

hey guys, seeing as my knowledge about hardware - especially in fields of video-cards - sucks, i'd love some valuable input.

I want to have a new video-card that is powerful enough to run recent games, such as skyrim, smoothly on my computer. Here's my current set-up:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 640 (4x3.0 GHz)
Ram: 2x2 GB of DDR3 RAM
Video Card: ATI HD 4550 (yes, very old)
Motherboard: ASRock 770 Extreme3
OS: Windows 7 - 32Bit (But I will upgrade to 64Bit shortly)

I have 270$ to spare on a video-card that suits my needs. I NEED the video-card to have at least 1 HDMI port and 1 VGA port, seeing as I am using dual-screen and one of those screens is a little older (hence the required VGA port). I would also like the videocard to be from ATI since I have, so far, had good experience with those and read pretty bad things about nvidia as far as image quality goes.

Help would be very much appreciated!

edit:
I was thinking about going for the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD6870 Flex, would that be an alright thing to do? It's 180€ (245$), which to me seems like a nice deal.

[Necronomitr0n]

could try using this

http://whatgfx.com/

[rtil]

considering how old the card is, is the slot pci-e 2 compliant? all modern cards use this slot. i hope you don't have an agp slot.

and you're not gonna find a modern video card with a VGA port. if you really want to use a monitor so ancient it only has VGA, you're going to have to get a VGA to DVI adapter, and plug it in to one of the card's DVI ports. there might by VGA to HDMI but they're probably more expensive and the extra cost would be a waste of money.

[psi43]

considering how old the card is, is the slot pci-e 2 compliant? all modern cards use this slot. i hope you don't have an agp slot.

and you're not gonna find a modern video card with a VGA port. if you really want to use a monitor so ancient it only has VGA, you're going to have to get a VGA to DVI adapter, and plug it in to one of the card's DVI ports. there might by VGA to HDMI but they're probably more expensive and the extra cost would be a waste of money.

Oh it's PCI-E2 16x, yeah. My mainboard is relatively new as well, about 1 year old, I don't think it even has an AGP slot.

As for your comment about VGA, almost every modern video card I have been looking at so far have at least 1 VGA port, there were just a very few that didn't, actually.

But yeah, I was told to go for this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125363

[rtil]

considering how old the card is, is the slot pci-e 2 compliant? all modern cards use this slot. i hope you don't have an agp slot.

and you're not gonna find a modern video card with a VGA port. if you really want to use a monitor so ancient it only has VGA, you're going to have to get a VGA to DVI adapter, and plug it in to one of the card's DVI ports. there might by VGA to HDMI but they're probably more expensive and the extra cost would be a waste of money.

Oh it's PCI-E2 16x, yeah. My mainboard is relatively new as well, about 1 year old, I don't think it even has an AGP slot.

As for your comment about VGA, almost every modern video card I have been looking at so far have at least 1 VGA port, there were just a very few that didn't, actually.

But yeah, I was told to go for this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125363

well i'm not sure what the fuck you think a VGA port is because that card has no VGA ports. that card has 1 HDMI and 2 DVI ports. you either don't know what a VGA port is or are completely blind, because you will be kicking yourself if you think a VGA will fit into any of those.

and furthermore, no, modern cards don't have VGA. it's a dead protocol - you can't buy a new monitor that uses vga - at least in the united states.

for reference, this is what a VGA port looks like:



is this what you're talking about?

[trent bortknob]

^ new monitors don't use those??? waht the hell do they use then??

[Necronomitr0n]

^ new monitors don't use those??? waht the hell do they use then??

DVI


or if you want to go the whole nine yards, hdmi

[rtil]

^ new monitors don't use those??? waht the hell do they use then??

vga is ooooooooooooold, like really really old. what systech showed is what most monitors use, and then there's HDMI which is really more practical for TV but it's becoming the new standard

they're quite small compared to both

[Sinitron]

well i use an evga gtx 465 which isn't too expensive and runs RAGE fine (unlike 90% of all cards apparently)

whatever you do just stay away from shitty ATI cards

use the spare money from not getting a top of the line card to buy a second monitor which isn't shit, a display model or some sort o discounted thing in a store preferably

[rtil]

i've used ati radeon cards for years and never had a single problem with them bar some driver upgrade annoyance a few years ago. you usually get more bang with your buck with radeons anyway because they don't have a near monopoly on the market like nvidia does

[Sinitron]

nah ATI sucks

a while ago they were comparable to Nvidia but their more recent high-end cards have largely been worse

my cousin was an ATI fan for years but he says if he had money to buy new shit right now he would definitely go with nvidia

less bullshit with nvidia and intel overall, their market dominance isn't necessarily a good thing but devs are more likely to make sure stuff works

[rtil]

you think ATI sucks then back it up

yes, the highest end nvidia cards outperform ATI and for obvious reasons, but if you want to look at another fact take a look at the price comparison based on benchmark score per dollar and you will see that ATI comes out ahead

many of ATI's cards perform close enough to their respective nvidia counterparts for a substantially less amount of money

suffice to say, if your sweeping opinion is that "ATI sucks", you're sorrily mistaken

[Sinitron]

but developers always focus on nvidia

so generally there's less bullshit with nvidia cards

this also comes down to the fact that with more complex games etc the quality of their code and structural design of the chips in use is very important

most of the problems with RAGE as an example were reported from ATI users, but i still think nvidia came out with a driver update sooner (though this was largely id's fault)

starcraft 2 also had some issues at launch with ATI cards

plus, looking at that list, the 460 (similar to my 465) scores very high, but with the added bonus of most likely not exploding in your face

ATI wins on price, no doubt about it, but if you want quality and reliability you're going to have to shell out more

if psi wants to fork over almost 300 bucks for a graphics card price starts to become less of an issue really

[rtil]

well some of the higher end models cost a lot more than $300, personally i think it's a waste considering the performance difference between now and last gen unless you're super concerned about new technologies

but as far as issues with games and driver problems, i have to say i've never experienced any issues with my card not supporting a game or having a brand-specific issue. then again, i don't play anywhere near as many games as you do, nor do i play games at launch very often.

developers focus on and market nvidia, but ati supports all the same technologies. they just have different names - like SLI and crossfire. they do the same damn thing.

from my experience with ATI, the cards i've bought have been extremely reliable and i've used them for years. my 4850 gets near 60FPS on sc2 on ultra settings - this is an older card and i have not clocked it or modified it at all besides the stock cooler. it is a high quality brand.

[Gladius]

Went from 2 ATI 4850s in crossfire to a single 470 GTX and have not regretted it. Before I fitted new coolers, the 4850s were prone to reaching 100c+ during games and sounded like jets taking off, but even with stock cooling the 470 gives me no such problems, despite NV's reputation for overheating. Not sure if this still holds true with the latest cards, but I'd probably lean more towards Nvidia for a new card purchase, and Sinitron's 465 sounds like a good buy to me.

But all in all I'd most highly recommend doing your research, and getting what suits your needs (and is reliable and well-supported) at a good price. Brand loyalty is for suckers.

[rtil]

you should always replace stock coolers imo. i do it on all video cards and cpu's as well.

[Gladius]

i've looked into it but can't find any good ones other than water coolers. i've fitted a pretty nice aftermarket cooler to my cpu though, and it's much improved.

[psi43]

well some of the higher end models cost a lot more than $300, personally i think it's a waste considering the performance difference between now and last gen unless you're super concerned about new technologies

but as far as issues with games and driver problems, i have to say i've never experienced any issues with my card not supporting a game or having a brand-specific issue. then again, i don't play anywhere near as many games as you do, nor do i play games at launch very often.

developers focus on and market nvidia, but ati supports all the same technologies. they just have different names - like SLI and crossfire. they do the same damn thing.

from my experience with ATI, the cards i've bought have been extremely reliable and i've used them for years. my 4850 gets near 60FPS on sc2 on ultra settings - this is an older card and i have not clocked it or modified it at all besides the stock cooler. it is a high quality brand.

oh btw the reason why i wanted a video card in that price range is because i only update my computer every 3-4 years. So whenever I do, i get some of the best equipment i can afford at the time to make it last as long as possible, until I buy new stuff again.

[rtil]

water cooling is trivial. what a case needs is good airflow above all, and a proper metal for conducting. this copper cooler by zalman fits on just about any video card and lowers temps by 20-30C for me. of course if you do dual cards the slots need to be 2 apart

[Gladius]

that does look good, but the problem is i'm not sure if it's available here in euroland.