Sprout Posted February 14, 2010 Posted February 14, 2010 Greetings to you, N-Europe Tech Boards! I have a problem that I imagine is tech related! Help, if you could provide it, would be highly appreciated. Basically, my graphics card overheated and I am in need of a new one. Problem is I have no clue about graphics cards whatsoever, so I was hoping to get some advice about what I could/should buy to replace it. If it helps to know, I have an Acer Aspire M3640 PC, and the graphics card I had before it blew up was an Nvidia GeForce 8600GS 512MB. Don't think I need a really powerful card, as I'm not much of a PC gamer, though I do watch/record a lot of video, and when I do play games I'd like them to run smoothly. Oh, and, err, lets make the max price about £100. Obviously if I could pay less, that would be great. =P
MoogleViper Posted February 14, 2010 Posted February 14, 2010 9600GT 512mb £62.35 9800GT 512mb £75.96 9800GT 1GB £79.21
Nolan Posted February 14, 2010 Posted February 14, 2010 (edited) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB-XFX-HD-5670-PCI-E-21-(x16)-4000MHz-GDDR5-GPU-775MHz-400-Cores-DP-DL-DVI-I-HDMI This would suit you great. £70.48 with VAT, will get power just from the slot and is decently powerful and quite a step up from the 8600GS. I only checked scan, so it may be available cheaper from Aria or ebuyer. I don't know though. It's mildly cheaper at aria. £64.61 inc. VAT That's the web price. Edited February 14, 2010 by Nolan
Sméagol Posted February 14, 2010 Posted February 14, 2010 (edited) I hear the Ati HD 5750 & 5770 are incredibal value for their money, the 5750 is cheaper, and although I don't know the conversionrate, they go around for 100-130 euros, so they should fit within your budget, just check some price comparison site where you can get them the cheapest. If you want cheaper, you can go for an HD 5670. If you go any cheaper, you will be able to play videos, but I don't know about the occasional (recent) videogame. In your situation I'd go for the 5670 or 5750, depending on how much you want to spend and how cheap you can get them. Don't know anything about older cards, can't really find much info on a "8600 GS", an 8600 GTS however, seems to be PCI-E x16, if that's the card you have, than those cards (or any recent card actually) will fit right in. Although, they'll fit in technically, depending on how much room you have there, you might wanna check the actual dimensions . Edit: You might like [this] as well. Edited February 14, 2010 by Sméagol
McPhee Posted February 14, 2010 Posted February 14, 2010 Were you happy with the performance of your old card? If so it wouldn't cost a lot to replace it with something equivalent. Otherwise, Nolan's suggestions are a good bet.
Sprout Posted February 15, 2010 Author Posted February 15, 2010 Ah, thank you all for the quick responses. I'll be sure to order one of these in the next couple of days. You might like [this] as well. Ha ha, I've actually ordered one of those a few days ago already. But thank you anyway. =P
RoadKill Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 (edited) You can get a 5750 within that price envelope (£91.63) http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179681 Edited February 16, 2010 by RoadKill
Nolan Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 You can get a 5750 within that price envelope (£91.63) http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179681 Being that he's not a big gamer I doubt a 5750 would be needed. Also of note is it makes things a bit more complicated in it's need of a 6 pin power plug.
Sprout Posted February 16, 2010 Author Posted February 16, 2010 Hm, well I think I'm going to go with the SAPPHIRE ATI HD 5670 512MB. Just a quick question though. Is there absolutely any difference between these three lovely examples, other than the box? Does the slightly different packaging imply any differences between them? I noticed the second example had a VGA port on there (though play.com says it has a VGA port too/DVI to VGA adaptor), but other than that, any actual differences to these seemingly (or potentially literally) similar products?
Nolan Posted February 16, 2010 Posted February 16, 2010 They are all exactly the same except that Play and Tekheads versions have display port instead of a VGA port. All 3 have HDMI and DVI, and the one from Aria has VGA. Usually, cards come with adapters for DVI-HDMI and DVI-VGA.
RoadKill Posted February 20, 2010 Posted February 20, 2010 Being that he's not a big gamer I doubt a 5750 would be needed. Also of note is it makes things a bit more complicated in it's need of a 6 pin power plug. He set a limit of 100 quid. You always use the whole budget. Also, all the cards I've seen that need a plug, come with a molex adapter. That, and all modern PSUs have an extra plug
Nolan Posted February 20, 2010 Posted February 20, 2010 I don't use the whole budget, there isn't much reason to when you can save some money, and get something that will work just as well. As for the plug, I just meant that the 5670 just gets its power from the PCI slot which simplifies things a bit.
MoogleViper Posted February 20, 2010 Posted February 20, 2010 He set a limit of 100 quid. You always use the whole budget. Oh, and, err, lets make the max price about £100. Obviously if I could pay less, that would be great. =P No point in paying more than he needs to just because he can.
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