Replacement video card advice

[Avder]

Hey all

I need to replace my aging video card as it is starting to go on the fritz. It's an AMD HD 4800 series card, I believe a 4850. I'd like to find something at a reasonable price that has performance on par or slightly better than the HD 4800. My mobo can only do PCIE 2.0 as well, so keep that in mind. No preference between AMD or Nvidia.

Any recommendations?

[Krom]

While you can probably find a card that slow if you dig down far enough, you might as well grab something that is a bit of an improvement in various ways. I'd look for a Geforce GTX 750 Ti, one should be slightly over twice as fast but more importantly should score significantly better at anything concerning power/temperature/noise.

As for the PCIe spec, irrelevant for single video cards in this performance range, even PCIe 1.0 would be plenty.

If you kept a 4850 going this long, then you shouldn't need anything to replace a 750 Ti for probably a similar amount of time, and its based off nvidia's latest generation design so it should be supported for a long time.

[Avder]

Hm, cheapest on newegg is around 110. Was hoping for something under 75.

And PCIE spec is more or less irrelevant then? A PCIE 3.0 card will work in 2.0 slot? I used to be knowledgeable about stuff like this but I haven't bothered paying attention in years.

Also whats the 750s performance in older generation games that use DX9 and below? Some of the stuff I've found would seem to indicate the 4850 outperforms the 750 in those games.

[Krom]

Yeah, PCIe is backwards compatible, 3.0 cards work in 2.0 slots (and the other way around).

It would be faster even at older games, in terms of memory bandwidth, fill rate and raw shading power it should still come out ahead.

[Tunnelcat]

I've got a single EVGA Nvidia 680 4G VRAM rated for PCIe 3.0 on my PCIe 2.0 motherboard and it handles things just fine. Down the road it will start chugging, but not yet for what I'm playing now. You can get a EVGA Geforce 730 for under $80 though. You won't get 4G of VRAM however.

http://www.evga.com/Products/ProductLis ... ies+Family

[Avder]

From what little I've glanced at on the web, it seems the 4850 beats the pants off the 730.

So at this point I am probably going with either the 750 or 750 TI. My only concern is DirectX 9 performance since a lot of my games are older and it sounds like the 4850 is better in that single category than the 750s.

[Tunnelcat]

I haven't noticed too much of a hit on my DX9 games with my 680, but I've never done any comparison testing and besides, anything was better than my older Geforce GTX480 noisy vacuum cleaner hot plate that I had before. If you can find a 750 with 4G of VRAM, that would be better.

[Krom]

What games are you worried about? And where exactly are you hearing that the 750 Ti is slower in DX9 than the 4850?

[Avder]

What games are you worried about? And where exactly are you hearing that the 750 Ti is slower in DX9 than the 4850?

Basically anything that's DirectX 9 or below.

And here: http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-4850- ... GTX-750-Ti

[fliptw]

I have had no issues with dx9 games on my 660 Ti. Dx9 performance is a concern, go with another ATI card. Remember DX9 was essentially built around ATI's hardware at the time.

750ti is pretty nice upgrade all around tho.

[Avder]

Well if I were to go with another ATI card, what one would I need to get to get equivalent performance compared to the 4850?

[CDN_Merlin]

I recently bought an Sapphire R9-270x 2Gig and it works flawlessly with my all my games.
I play
UT 3
Hald Life 2 + Exp
Race On
Portal 1,2
D3 sometimes
D2x
Diablo 3, 2
IL2 Sturmovik 1946
Test Drive Unlimited

[Krom]

If you are looking at the 3dmark06 score on that gpuboss site, its completely full of ★■◆●. Here is an actual 3dmark06 score off a 750 Ti: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/17595656

GPU Boss says it gets 5,378 score in 3dmark06, when futuremarks own online results browser has instances of it scoring over 35,000 in 3dmark06 (and consistently scoring higher than 25,000 even without overclocks)...

Trust me, a 750 Ti will run circles around a Radeon HD 4850, especially in DX9 games.

[fliptw]

Well if I were to go with another ATI card, what one would I need to get to get equivalent performance compared to the 4850?

an R9 270X, same price range as the 750 TI, faster, louder, hotter, and more power hungry than the 750 TI.

[Avder]

Well if I were to go with another ATI card, what one would I need to get to get equivalent performance compared to the 4850?

an R9 270X, same price range as the 750 TI, faster, louder, hotter, and more power hungry than the 750 TI.

Yeah that's another good point. What are the power requirements of the 4850, 750 TI, and the 270X?

[fliptw]

450 for the 4850, 500w for the 270x, 300w for 750ti.

idle numbers: 160w for the 4850. 78w for the 270x, 73 for the 750

under load: 227w, 267w, and 184w respectvly.

temperatire at idle, 81C,30C, and 25C

temperature at load: 87C, 77C, and 62C.

another thing is the 750ti only takes up a single slot.

[Avder]

Looks like I'll be going after a TI.

[sigma]

If you wanted to buy a new computer, which brand do you prefer?

[Tunnelcat]

Looks like I'll be going after a TI.

If you go Nvidia, you'll get PhysX, not that that function is a deal maker. It is entertaining to watch the ragdoll actions of dead NCP's however.

If you wanted to buy a new computer, which brand do you prefer?

If someone had the cash, a top of the line Falcon Northwest or Maingear rig with a quad SLI videocard setup, the newest Intel CPU (not out yet I think), TONS of RAM and liquid cooling for EVERYTHING would be downright dreamy. Of course, if you built it yourself, you could put the best inside the best.

[AceCombat]

Nvidia just released the 9XX series. even the flagship the 980 is only ~$550 !!

the 970 is around 350.


thats a HUGE drop in price for "Flagship" cards. been looking at the 980's in all the reviews, the 780Ti still has a couple of spots, but all around, the 980 draws less power ( only 2x 6 pin vs 2x 8 pin ) produces less dissipation ( 30W ) less. and packs more punch in more areas.

sure winner in my books. and the price tops the cake!

[Sirius]

Interesting. How much of a performance improvement vs 800/700 series?

[AceCombat]

there was no 800 series for desktop... only Mobile Solutions carried 800 Series.


they skipped right from 7 to 9 for desktop solutions.

the 980 comes right with 4GB of GDDR5 - punching a 30w less TDP and by reference design losses the 2x 8 Pin Connectors back down to 2x 6 Pins.

HUGE power management and consumption improvements. right now only 2 - 9 series cards exist. the 980 and the 970, practically the same, 4GB GDDR5 and just different clocks and core count.

but for a flagship card to carry a almost $500 less price tag than the previous flagship @ almost $1000 dollars? dont know what they did... but good god!

the 970 runs a average of 350-380$ in price. Gigabyte though has seem to go backwards.... they took the reference boost design of the 980, and throw back on.... 2x 8 Pin PCI-E dongles... don't know why yet.... looking into that.

[Krom]

the 970 runs a average of 350-380$ in price. Gigabyte though has seem to go backwards.... they took the reference boost design of the 980, and throw back on.... 2x 8 Pin PCI-E dongles... don't know why yet.... looking into that.

Because the 980 is power limited when overclocking with a good chip.

And the reason the 980 is only $550 is because it is not the full size chip of this generation, expect a $1000 Titan or Ti variation later.

[AceCombat]

no doubt, just found it odd, the 980 as being toted the flagship.