Graphics Cards- Win7.

[delilah95]

As anyone got any suggestions for graphics cards priced from £70-£100 ($115-$170) which work with Win7.

 

[Zen00]

Get something from the Radeon HD 4000 or 5000 series.

 

[bobkn]

As anyone got any suggestions for graphics cards priced from £70-£100 ($115-$170) which work with Win7.

What kind of hardware interface? PCI-Express, AGP, PCI? (In case you're unfamiliar, PCI-Express is entirely different from PCI, and incompatible with it.)

If it's PCI-E, the cards at the high end of your price range (best 3D gaming performance, and DX11 support) use the AMD/ATI HD 5770 chipset. The 5750 is slightly less powerful, and less expensive. They may be a little hard to get at the moment: I think they use 40nm TSMC chips, and that fab has been having a little trouble keeping up with the demand.

If all you need is Aero Glass support, rather less expensive cards are available (nVidia Geforce 8400 based is about the minimum that supports DX10).

 

[delilah95]

What kind of hardware interface? PCI-Express, AGP, PCI? (In case you're unfamiliar, PCI-Express is entirely different from PCI, and incompatible with it.)

If it's PCI-E, the cards at the high end of your price range (best 3D gaming performance, and DX11 support) use the AMD/ATI HD 5770 chipset. The 5750 is slightly less powerful, and less expensive. They may be a little hard to get at the moment: I think they use 40nm TSMC chips, and that fab has been having a little trouble keeping up with the demand.

If all you need is Aero Glass support, rather less expensive cards are available (nVidia Geforce 8400 based is about the minimum that supports DX10).

I'm looking more into 3D gaming thanks for your help but how can I tell if the graphics cards are compatible?

 

[thefabe]

From the looks of the board Core - Denver 10 Motherboard - spec_denver10 - Information and Instructions - iMedia - platform_amadeus_imedia - Desktop It has a PCI-e slot so I would suggest any of the 4XXx series ATI cards or a gtx250 Nvidia. should be close to your price range. Fabe

 

[bobkn]

Oops. Forgot to check the system specs tab.

Right: one PCI-E X16 slot. (It may not be PCI-E 2.0, but I believe that all PCI-E 2.0 cards are backwards compatible.)

I'd still suggest the ATI HD57xx cards. It probably isn't worth a price premium to get the latest technology, but I've noticed in the past that prices of the previous generation (HD4xxx) tend not to drop when the new tech comes to market. For example: a 4770 with a 750 Mhz core clock, 640 stream processors, and 512MB of 800 MHz memory at 800 MHz sells (www.newegg.com) for about $110 and up. A 5750 with a 700 MHz core clock, 720 stream processors, and 1GB of 1150 MHz RAM sells for $145. That's not a trivial price difference, but the 5750 would be superior at higher resolutions, and it's DX11 as well.

I tend to prefer nVidia's drivers, but I believe that ATI/AMD has the price/performance lead in hardware at the moment.

One caveat: I see that the OP's system board has onboard graphics. I hope there's a BIOS setting to disable that. I have read postings from people having trouble getting discrete graphics cards working properly in systems with onboard graphics that couldn't be explicitly disabled. A quick check online didn't reveal whether the system has such a BIOS setting.

 

[delilah95]

Oops. Forgot to check the system specs tab.

Right: one PCI-E X16 slot. (It may not be PCI-E 2.0, but I believe that all PCI-E 2.0 cards are backwards compatible.)

I'd still suggest the ATI HD57xx cards. It probably isn't worth a price premium to get the latest technology, but I've noticed in the past that prices of the previous generation (HD4xxx) tend not to drop when the new tech comes to market. For example: a 4770 with a 750 Mhz core clock, 640 stream processors, and 512MB of 800 MHz memory at 800 MHz sells (www.newegg.com) for about $110 and up. A 5750 with a 700 MHz core clock, 720 stream processors, and 1GB of 1150 MHz RAM sells for $145. That's not a trivial price difference, but the 5750 would be superior at higher resolutions, and it's DX11 as well.

I tend to prefer nVidia's drivers, but I believe that ATI/AMD has the price/performance lead in hardware at the moment.

One caveat: I see that the OP's system board has onboard graphics. I hope there's a BIOS setting to disable that. I have read postings from people having trouble getting discrete graphics cards working properly in systems with onboard graphics that couldn't be explicitly disabled. A quick check online didn't reveal whether the system has such a BIOS setting.

Thanks for the help and quick response- I'll have a look into the graphics cards you suggestes paticuarly as I've never bought anything from ATI/AMD before.

 

[delilah95]

From the looks of the board Core - Denver 10 Motherboard - spec_denver10 - Information and Instructions - iMedia - platform_amadeus_imedia - Desktop It has a PCI-e slot so I would suggest any of the 4XXx series ATI cards or a gtx250 Nvidia. should be close to your price range. Fabe

Thanks as well for the help! The transistion from one graphics card to the next should be quite smooth anyway as there is the upgrade slot!

 

[Zen00]

Just remember, you can't run simultaneous video cards of multiple vendors, meaning you can't run an ATI and a nVidia card at the same time. Unless you buy one of the boards coming out next year with the Lucid Logic Hydra chip on it.

 

[delilah95]

Just remember, you can't run simultaneous video cards of multiple vendors, meaning you can't run an ATI and a nVidia card at the same time. Unless you buy one of the boards coming out next year with the Lucid Logic Hydra chip on it.

so when i put (for example) an AMD card in my computer the Nvidia one gets overidden and I can't use it at all. But if i stuck an Nvidia one in I could use both?

 

[Zen00]

They would need to from the same brand, same generation, like say two GTX260's, unless again you have the Lucid Hydra chip.

Also your board would have to support SLI (with nVidia) or Crossfire (with ATI). Plus you'd need a bridge for the cards as well, they're like five dollars though.

 

[delilah95]

They would need to from the same brand, same generation, like say two GTX260's, unless again you have the Lucid Hydra chip.

Also your board would have to support SLI (with nVidia) or Crossfire (with ATI). Plus you'd need a bridge for the cards as well, they're like five dollars though.

Ok so if it runs nVidia at the moment it can support SLI?

 

[delilah95]

Is this graphics card worth it, I found it on newegg.com! It is PCI-e 2.0 and its a Radeon HD 5750.

 

[Zen00]

The 5750 is the lowest end of the latest ATI Radeon generation. They are not as powerful as the similiarly priced 4870 or 4890, but the features you get can make up that for you.

Features:

1. Support for DirectX 11, the only card currently on market with it.
2. Eyefinity, for multiple monitor so you can display on them with one card.
3. Low power consumption and heat generation, almost half of the last generation of cards.

Remember, you'll have to have a Crossfire supporting motherboard if you want to run two of them in tandem. If you're just putting in that one card, you should be all right.

Make sure your motherboard supports PCIe 2.0 16x

 

[bobkn]

The 5750 is the lowest end of the latest ATI Radeon generation. They are not as powerful as the similiarly priced 4870 or 4890, but the features you get can make up that for you.

(snip)

Make sure your motherboard supports PCIe 2.0 16x

I hadn't checked the current pricing on the 4870, but you're right - I see that the 1GB versions can be had for as little as $155 (www.newegg.com).

I hadn't noticed that the 5750 has a 128 bit memory bus, vs. 256 for the 4870. It's clocked a bit higher on the 5750 (1150 MHz vs. 900), but that means that the effective memory bandwidth of the 5750 is about 64% of the 4870. Naively taking the product of the number of stream processors and core clock, the 5750 would have 84% of the performance of the 4870 - not bad, as the 4870 was the original high-end card in the 4000 series, and the 5750 is the current low-end card in the 5000 series.

Aargh. I hardly know what to recommend.

(I see that if you want a 256 bit memory bus in the 5000 series, the 5850 is the minimum. $300 card, and none in stock at Newegg.)

Does PCI-E 2.0 really matter? I thought that no current graphics cards would be starved for data by a PCI-E (not 2.0) X16 slot.

I would not have imagined that this thread would evolve in the SLI/Crossfire direction. Delilah95's board has a single PCI-E X16 slot, and I don't expect that it's PCI-E 2.0. The chipset is an nVidia 630i, so Crossfire wouldn't be an option, even if there were two PCI-E X16 slots.

 

[stormy13]

Before getting too carried away with what card to get, what power supply is in the computer (Packard Bell IMEDIA D2315 AIO)? Tried looking, but not finding a whole lot of anything. If Packard Bell is anything like Dell/HP, it will have the bare minimum power supply in it to run what the computer shipped with. You may be looking at a PSU upgrade in addition to the cost of a new card.

Pop the side panel off and make note of the total wattage, and also how many watts on the 12V rail (hopefully that info is on the label).

 

[Zen00]

And if you're looking at all that, I'd suggest just buying a new computer at that point.

 

[bobkn]

Before getting too carried away with what card to get, what power supply is in the computer (Packard Bell IMEDIA D2315 AIO)? Tried looking, but not finding a whole lot of anything. If Packard Bell is anything like Dell/HP, it will have the bare minimum power supply in it to run what the computer shipped with. You may be looking at a PSU upgrade in addition to the cost of a new card.

Pop the side panel off and make note of the total wattage, and also how many watts on the 12V rail (hopefully that info is on the label).

That's a point.

Completely aside from the amount of power the PSU can deliver, the high-powered cards require auxiliary power connections. An HD5750 requires a single PCI-E 6 pin power connector. An HD4870 needs two 6 pin connectors.

There can also be a space issue. The high-powered cards tend to be physically long, and may not fit in all cases.

The most advanced (?) card I spotted that gets all of its power through the PCI-E slot is a Radeon 4670.

It's too bad that only minimal specs for the Packard Bell IMEDIA D2315 seem to be available online. It's hard to tell what would work, especially without power adapters. (Cards usually come with Molex-to-PCI-E converters, even though some manufacturers aren't enthusiastic about them.)

If this gives pause to delilah95, well it should.

 

[delilah95]

I really appreciate the help but to be truly honest I'm lost, the specs listed on my account was all I could find and I have no idea about power supplies etc. I was told by a friend that replacing a graphics card would be easy and I good find a decent one on the market- no problem. The person was from TechGuys actually fixing my computer so he must have has a few ideas in mind- unfortunately I cannot get back in contact with him to ask him about it.

I am very confused and my mum (lol) forced me to get my computer reset (I'm writing from her laptop) as it was cluttered and it will not be back for a week! If I take the Radeon 4670 as a final suggestion and get back to you guys with the power supply could you tell me whether it would be suitable. All your help and suggestions have been great

 

[bobkn]

I wouldn't want to take responsibility for dictating (in effect) someone's graphics card choice.

Unfortunately, I can't find adequate information about the Imedia D2315 online, in particular its PSU capabilities.

When you get the machine back there should be a plaque on the side of the PSU that gives its specifications. Also, check for PCI-E power connectors:

Google Image Result for http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/pcie6.jpg