recommendation for budget gaming graphics card

[awamsn]

hello

what is the best gaming graphics card that i could buy for a price around £100 (bit more or less) bearing in mind the power supplier i currently have is a 400w power supplier

thank you

 

[Britton30]

You are likely more limited by a 400W PSU than your budget. First check you vendor and sort by price, then check the specs for the one with 400W or less minimum PSU.
An nVIDIA 650 of some kind may fit you well.

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Sapphire HD6670 OR 7770 since it is incredibly low power consumption, but I think the 7770's limit is 450.

 

[bobkn]

Sapphire HD6670 OR 7770 since it is incredibly low power consumption, but I think the 7770's limit is 450.

I'm confused by their listings, but www.sapphiretech.com has one 7770 that needs a 6 pin PCI-E power connector and a 500W PSU. The other 7770s have no auxiliary power, and only require a 400W PSU.

I'm waiting for someone to invoke the conventional wisdom in this forum, requiring at least a 25% margin over the specified PSUs...

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Sapphire HD6670 OR 7770 since it is incredibly low power consumption, but I think the 7770's limit is 450.

I'm confused by their listings, but www.sapphiretech.com has one 7770 that needs a 6 pin PCI-E power connector and a 500W PSU. The other 7770s have no auxiliary power, and only require a 400W PSU.

I'm waiting for someone to invoke the conventional wisdom in this forum, requiring at least a 25% margin over the specified PSUs...

I would commend on the numerous 7700 series offerings, but the sapphire page is terrible and will not load for me.

But yeah, I think the one you are referring to is the flexible 7770 or something like that I believe it's called.
When it comes to the PSU, you are also right, it is recommendable to have some extra power laying around, specially if you do not have a good PSU.
I have the HD7770 Vapor X OC Version and the specifications on the very box says it requires at least a 430Watt PSU, so it is very confusing at times. Either way I have been running mine overclocked over the base OC on a 450Watt PSU and it holds great if you ask me.

Still planning to get a 550WSeasonc PSU in the future though, you never know when your PSU might stop outputting as much wattage as it first used to.

 

[awamsn]

Bought Asus Nvidia GTX 650ti and it is working like a charm.. the whole PC is preforming way better that it used to do.. definitely recommended.

my previous gpu is ancient .. it was an nvidia 8600 gts lol

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Be careful with that PSU please.
We don't want you to suffer a big economical loss.

 

[awamsn]

how do i know if the psu is struggling with the graphics card.. cause everything is running smoothly so far

is there anyway where i could test the psu

 

[hybridfan]

A 640 is under £80 and is decent value.

Asus Nvidia GeForce GT 640 Graphics Card (2GB DDR3, PCI Express 3.0, VGA, 2x DVI-D, HDMI, Nvidia 3D Vision Ready): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

[bobkn]

how do i know if the psu is struggling with the graphics card.. cause everything is running smoothly so far

is there anyway where i could test the psu

Download, install, and run Furmark.

FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net

If that doesn't overheat your PSU, I don't know what will.

Be warned that if the power supply dies, it may also destroy any or all other parts of your PC that it powers.

 

[vaidas3]

400W is not the only thing what you need to know is your PSU from reputable manufacturer? and how old it is?
reputable manufaturer usually marks psu not by max peak wattage but w that can be constantly produced.. also age is important because capacitor aging reduces performance.
if your psu is not some no name and not older than 2-3 year Geforce 650 should run without any problem.
I noticed lots of people recommend to buy PSU that is overkill for pc its better to buy quality product than have more W.. to buy PSU with more W just "for future upgrade" is bad idea.. because pc architecture is ever changing (new CPU generations, new sockets, in this case PSU cap aging, etc) you buy PC for now not future.. when you need faster pc or more power you look to replace that part or buy new pc.
and if you dont know what youre doing i would advice to be very carefull with any tests that tries to burn your hardware.. most games will never load your hardware 100%