Need help picking out a new graphics card

[Razor505]

I need a graphics card thats good for gaming, surfing the web, and realiable. Please keep in mind my CPU is a AMD Athlon II x4 635, with a 500W Corsair PSU and my budget is around $140. This is the web site I going to order from.
Video Cards : Video Cards & PC Components - Best Buy Canada

 

[Erick Aguilar]

You should order from NCIX instead, you will get better deals and warranty.
Just a little opinion.

As for a GPU recommendation I will step out of this.
These type of thread destroy friendships.

 

[Razor505]

You should order from NCIX instead, you will get better deals and warranty.
Just a little opinion.

As for a GPU recommendation I will step out of this.
These type of thread destroy friendships.

I know what you mean but NCIX makes me pay shipping for everything, where Bestbuy does not, but the biggest problems is to return stuff that are defective or broken, where Bestbuy has a store in my city, but NCIX isnt.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Razor505,
The Acer case will be the limiting factor. If it was me I would consider a new mid-tower or full tower case and then you can shop for a full height GPU and not a half height unit
Update: Disregard I couldn't locate your system on Acer's site but looked up the GPU at AMD and it's full height. You should measure the available distance for the card space and let us know or provide a link to your Aspire unit.

 

[Razor505]

Razor505,
The Acer case will be the limiting factor. If it was me I would consider a new mid-tower or full tower case and then you can shop for a full height GPU and not a half height unit
Update: Disregard I couldn't locate your system on Acer's site but looked up the GPU at AMD and it's full height. You should measure the available distance for the card space and let us know or provide a link to your Aspire unit.

This is not the official Acer website though this is exactly the one i have.
Acer Aspire AM3400-E2212 AMD Athlon II X4 635 4GB 1TB DVDRW Windows 7 Home Premium Desktop

 

[bobkn]

Razor505,
The Acer case will be the limiting factor. If it was me I would consider a new mid-tower or full tower case and then you can shop for a full height GPU and not a half height unit
Update: Disregard I couldn't locate your system on Acer's site but looked up the GPU at AMD and it's full height. You should measure the available distance for the card space and let us know or provide a link to your Aspire unit.

This is not the official Acer website though this is exactly the one i have.
Acer Aspire AM3400-E2212 AMD Athlon II X4 635 4GB 1TB DVDRW Windows 7 Home Premium Desktop

Somehow your link ended up at the base of NCIX, rather than the product page.

The case is 7" wide. I believe that means that it isn't limited to low-profile graphics cards.

Not sure what to recommend for a card. Some Radeon HD 7770 cards are available within your target price range. It's superior to the nVidia GTX 650. A GTX 650ti would be considerably better, but it'd be outside your range by a little.

ASUS GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB GDDR5 Video Card (GTX650TI-1GD5) : Video Cards - Best Buy Canada

Alternately,

Newegg.ca - EVGA 01G-P4-3650-KR GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

($150CDN + $10.74 shipping - $10 rebate.)

 

[Razor505]

I got the dimensions:
180 (W) x 401.8 (D) x 379 (H) mm (7.08 x 15.81 x 14.92 inches)
Plus I dont have anything installed on the other PCI slots, so it should have enough room.
Here is all the Specs from the NCIX page:

Operating System
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Processor
AMD Athlon™ II X4 quad-core desktop processor 635 (2 MB L2 cache, 512 KB L1 cache; 2.90 GHz, DDR3 1333 MHz, 95 W)

Chipset
AMD 880G Chipset, supporting ATI Radeon HD 4250 Graphics
System Memory
4GB Dual-channel DDR3 SDRAM support
Hard drive
Hard disk drive:
1 TB
Supports up to 2 additional hard disk drives (depends on chassis capacity)
Optical drive
Write: 48X CD-R, 10X CD-RW, 16X DVD-R, 16X DVD+R, 16X DVD-RW, 16X DVD+RW, 5X DVD-RAM, 8X DVD+R DL, 8X DVD-R DL
16X DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive:
Read: 48X CD-ROM, 48X CD-R, 48 CD-RW, 16X DVD-ROM, 16X DVD-R, 16X DVD+R, 8X DVD-ROM DL, 8X DVD-R DL, 8X DVD+R DL, 8X DVD-RW, 8X DVD+RW, 12X DVD-RAM
Write: 48X CD-R, 10X CD-RW, 16X DVD-R, 16X DVD+R, 16X DVD-RW, 16X DVD+RW, 5X DVD-RAM, 8X DVD+R DL, 8X DVD-R DL
16X DVD-ROM drive:
Read: 48X CD-ROM, 48X CD-R, 48 CD-RW, 16X DVD-ROM, 16X DVD-R, 16X DVD+R, 8X DVD-ROM DL, 8X DVD-R DL, 8X DVD+R DL, 8X DVD-RW, 8X DVD+RW, 12X DVD-RAM
Card reader
Multi-in-1 card reader, supporting:
CompactFlash® (Type I and II)
CF+™ Microdrive
MultiMediaCard™ (MMC) / HC MMCplus™ / HC MMCmobile™
Reduced-Size MultiMediaCard (RS-MMC)
Secure Digital™ (SD) Card/miniSD™ Card (Adaptor is required) / microSD™ Card (Adaptor is required)
xD-Picture Card™
Memory Stick™ / Memory Stick PRO™ / Memory Stick Duo™ / Memory Stick PRO Duo™ / Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo™ / Memory Stick Micro™ (M2) Memory Card
TV-tuner N/A
Graphics
ATI Radeon™ HD 4250 Graphics with 512 MB of dedicated system memory, supporting Unified Video Decoder (UVD), OpenEXR High Dynamic-Range (HDR) technology, Shader Model 5.0, Microsoft® DirectX® 11, OpenGL® 3.2, OpenCL™ 1.0
Dual independent display support
16.7 million colors
MPEG-2/DVD decoding
WMV9 (VC-1) and H.264 (AVC) decoding
Microsoft® DirectX® Video Acceleration (DXVA) application interface (API)
HDMI™ (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) with HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) support
Audio
High-definition audio support
Networking
LAN: Gigabit Ethernet
I/O ports
Top:
Four USB 2.0 ports
High-definition headphone and microphone jacks
Front:
Multi-in-1 card reader
Back:
Six USB 2.0 ports
PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports
Audio: Headphone/speaker line-out jack, Microphone-in jack, Line-in jack
Communication: Ethernet (RJ-45) port
Video: HDMI™ port with HDCP support, D-sub VGA port
USB module with two USB 2.0 ports
I/O expansion
PCI Express® 2.0 x16 slot
Two PCI Express® 2.0 x1 slots
PCI™ v2.3 (5 V) slot
Software
Productivity:
Adobe® Reader®
eSobi™
Microsoft® Office Home and Student Edition 2007 SP2 Trial
Microsoft® Works
Windows Live™ Essentials
Internet:
Adobe® Flash® Player
Google™ Setup
Google Toolbar™
Netflix Shortcuts
Skype™
Multimedia:
Acer Arcade™ Deluxe 4.0
Nero® 9 Essentials
Security:
McAfee® Internet Security Suite Trial9
MyWinLocker®
Entertainment:
eBay®
Game Zone
Utilities:
Acer eRecovery Management
Norton™ Online Backup
Dimensions
180 (W) x 401.8 (D) x 379 (H) mm (7.08 x 15.81 x 14.92 inches)
Power supply
PSU:
300 W
Certification
FCC, CE, C-tick, BSMI, CCC, VCCI, , CB, GS, MET, UL, cUL, Nemko

 

[AddRAM]

I think all the cards today are garbage and dam ugly. I love my 9600 gt`s

Especially the XFX`s

 

[Thorsen]

I don't know about all cards being ugly, just depends on your style. they are going toward sleak/minimalist design though...

got this card a while ago before it was discontinued and it looks very nice in my case. it was good for my budget and overclocks nicely.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

Either upgrading to a 7850 next or xfir'ing a second 6850. not sure yet on budget, but probably will go with 7850 or better when prices go down simply due to RAM mirroring in xfire otherwise 2x6850's beat the 7850: Video Card Comparison - GPUReview.com# (enable multi-gpu to see diff)


Just don't go with the 77xx cards... the 6850 is still better than those. the 7850 and up are better though....

(this is obviously just on the AMD side. not sure where these lie in comparison with Nvidia) (would like to know though....)

 

[bobkn]

Just don't go with the 77xx cards... the 6850 is still better than those. the 7850 and up are better though....

I didn't think that it would still be possible to get a 6850 new. Looks like you can, but perhaps not for $140CDN.

Sapphire requires a 500W PSU for their versions of the 6850. I expect that a Corsair CX500 would be adequate.

If memory serves, the 6850 was the third most powerful single GPU card of its generation (after the 6870 and 6890).

I think I'd take a GTX 650ti over it, but they'd be of roughly the same class in performance.

 

[Erick Aguilar]

I think all the cards today are garbage and dam ugly. I love my 9600 gt`s

Especially the XFX`s

Oh, I love this card

If it was possibly I'd get it only because of looks, but it's also a 7870. Beautiful looking card.

 

[Razor505]

So should I get the Geforce GTX 650 Ti, stick to the Gigabyte HD 7750, the Sapphire Toxic HD 6850, or go with another graphics card? Also would it be possible to buy a graphics card for the PCI x1 slot and have another one on the PCI-E?

 

[bobkn]

So should I get the Geforce GTX 650 Ti, stick to the Gigabyte HD 7750, the Sapphire Toxic HD 6850, or go with another graphics card? Also would it be possible to buy a graphics card for the PCI x1 slot and have another one on the PCI-E?

6850, if you can afford it.

If I have found the right specs, the machine has one PCI-E X16 slot, two PCI-E X1 slots, and one PCI slot. I haven't found whether a double slot X16 card would block any of those, but it wouldn't be a surprise if one of the X1 slots was covered.

PCI-E X1 and PCI graphics cards exist. They tend to be low-end and relatively expensive (compared to their X16 versions).

May I ask why you'd want 3 graphics cards?

Crossfire wouldn't be available with your system, I think. (SLI is certainly unavailable, if only because the board won't be licensed for it.) Single AMD graphics cards support multiple monitors (Eyefinity), although you'd need to be able to deal with DisplayPort connections if you used 3 or more.

 

[Razor505]

I was thinking if I could have a extra graphics card, like one for the hdmi and one for gaming. Also is it okay if you could help me pick out a graphic card from Bestbuy, my budget is around $150.

 

[bobkn]

I was thinking if I could have a extra graphics card, like one for the hdmi and one for gaming. Also is it okay if you could help me pick out a graphic card from Bestbuy, my budget is around $150.

This one:

Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E 3.0 Video Card (GV-N65TOC-1GI) : Video Cards - Best Buy Canada

or this one:

ASUS GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB GDDR5 Video Card (GTX650TI-1GD5) : Video Cards - Best Buy Canada

$160, but it's a significantly better than the other cards that I see there at roughly this price.

More expensive yet:

Sapphire TOXIC HD 6850 1GB PCI-E Video Card : Video Cards - Best Buy Canada

but also a significantly better card. All of these are only available online.

I'd probably prefer www.newegg.ca, at the risk of having to pay return shipping.

 

[Razor505]

I just go with Bestbuy because of they have a store in my city. But my friend has bought from Newegg before, but I have'nt.

 

[Razor505]

But one more question, would it work on my cpu? I just dont want to bottleneck it.

 

[bobkn]

But one more question, would it work on my cpu? I just dont want to bottleneck it.

It'd work. Sniffing around the Web, I see people happily running a 6850 with an Athlon II X4 635.

One possible worry: I'm not sure about that card, but I see that a similar model is 238mm (9.37") long. Will that fit in your case? (I expect so, but it'd be worth checking.)

 

[AddRAM]

TigerDirect.com - Electronics, Tablets, Phones, Office Supplies & Video Games

And here $50

http://www.ebay.com/itm/380561874630?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

 

[Razor505]

But one more question, would it work on my cpu? I just dont want to bottleneck it.

It'd work. Sniffing around the Web, I see people happily running a 6850 with an Athlon II X4 635.

One possible worry: I'm not sure about that card, but I see that a similar model is 238mm (9.37") long. Will that fit in your case? (I expect so, but it'd be worth checking.)

My computer case is 180 (W) x 401.8 (D) x 379 (H) mm (7.08 x 15.81 x 14.92 inches)
but I have 3 slot space left in my computer beside the PCI-E