Pc Geeks In Here! Video Cards

[DailyDi]

What is the best video card available today that isn't a total power hog... let's say 300w or less.

[diaperlover76]

hard to say and depends what you want to use it for. i like ati readon cards my self but as how much and what you use it for is a key to as which one you choose. look on newegg.com prices are good and a good place to buy from all my builds i buy everything from there. hope this helps a lil

[DailyDi]

Newegg is my preferred provider (I have credit with them for parts.) But they don't give power consumption info so I have to research each and every card.

As for usage: Warcraft of course

[greatwnorth]

Is there a way to access your pc and find out what your system's video card info is? through control panel etc...??? just for comparisson <(where is the damn spell checker?) purposes.

[wetman]

Is there a way to access your pc and find out what your system's video card info is? through control panel etc...??? just for comparisson <(where is the damn spell checker?) purposes.

HWinfo

[Yipyap]

GTX460 is probably still the way to go. I say that because ATI drivers can be pretty problematic at times, and it's not worth the hassle.

[DailyDi]

Put the current card in myself, so I know what it is

2GB Radeon HD 5670

[dl_ashlee]

THe 5670 should play all current games fine, I'm still running on an 8800GT(G92, much closer performance to GTX then the orginal gt/gts) and can run all the current games. Not at Maxed out settings, but Medium runs fine.

One thing you might want to think about is you might be CPU limiting yourself. Even with my 8800GT I was CPU bound when I had a Core2Duo E6300 OC'd to 2.8GHz. I upgraded to a Core2Quad Q9650 and I am no longer bound by CPU.

[ldatsea]

Put the current card in myself, so I know what it is

2GB Radeon HD 5670

why do you need to replace this? need different output? takes to much power? for the system i use for my real life work Ati cards are preferred...

[dogpiss]

I'm not clear whether you have 300w to spare or 300w total. If the latter, I'd go with an Nvidia 9500GT. It's a decent card and isn't a power pig. It also has 128 bit wide bus which makes a surprising speed difference over 64 bit. Not to mention the G96a/b has been around a while and is pretty solid. I've used this card to give Dell OptiPlex machines a decent punt in the underside.

[DailyDi]

300 to spare

[diaperboy4life]

GTX460 is probably still the way to go. I say that because ATI drivers can be pretty problematic at times, and it's not worth the hassle.

Not really, that requires a minimum of 450W, and he needs a GPU that uses LESS then 300W. I agree with you ATI drivers SUCK. I once bought a video card from them that they had no drivers for! So i was using outdated drivers from an older model that worked but it would randomly just shutdown and was a huge disappointment and i never bought from them again.

Btw its going to be pretty difficult to find a good gaming GPU that uses less then 300W.... Dont get me wrong there are plenty good ones but the high end gaming ones use about 400W and more. If your serious about getting a good graphic card then you should probably buy a new PSU. But thats just my opinion.

[Ryan23A]

I had a 5770 and that ran my games on high on a 1280*1024 screen very well. The 6770 is a revision of that card and it should work a bit better than the 5770. I do not know why I said that I had a 6770 before i edited this post.

[Ryan23A]

Yeah a 6770 should work for you very good for what you need. Hope that you can get something good.

[dl_ashlee]

What is your actual power supply, brand? model? wattage?

Looking at some power ratings it looks to me like the GTX570 uses 330Watts, do you really think your psu can't handle another 30watts? The GTX570 also is a good bang for your buck as it is about 30% cheaper than the GTX580. While it only has a maximum of about 15% in fps loss compared to the 580. Depending on the game it will be even less percentage difference.