Graphics card help

[nimbah_52]

I have a Hp dX2250 with a Amd Athlon 64 x2 5600+ @2.8GHz plus 2GB ram.
I need a cheap graphics card that can play games like GTA IV on low to medium with ideally 30fps. I only have a 250 watt psu so it will have to be low profile. What would be the best graphics card under £30 to do this?

Thanks

 

[firedice]

I don't think it's going to be possible, to be honest.

 

[prodriver2]

GTA IV is poorly coded and is mostly bottlenecked by the CPU. Your CPU is not that good and i really don't think you will be able to run GTA IV at 30fps with any graphics card and certainly not with a <£30 one.

 

[bigshootr8]

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4GHz

That is the processor requirements for his GTA IV. He is running slightly faster then that.

However even with that you are running into a couple of road blocks. Your CPU is old, your memory would bottleneck any modern GPU 4GB, 8GB is where you ought to be. If you were at 4/8 gigabytes with something like a gtx650ti you could probably do just fine in GTA IV. But a graphics card under 30 dollars will not get it done.

 

[nimbah_52]

GTA IV is poorly coded and is mostly bottlenecked by the CPU. Your CPU is not that good and i really don't think you will be able to run GTA IV at 30fps with any graphics card and certainly not with a <£30 one.

Oh right, so what would be my best bet for games in general? GTA 3 maybe ?

 

[bigshootr8]

You could probably do GTA 3 yes.

 

[nimbah_52]

You could probably do GTA 3 yes.

With what card?

 

[bigshootr8]

Maybe integrated at this point. The game runs on direct x 8.1 which is god old.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/12100/

 

[nimbah_52]

Maybe integrated at this point. The game runs on direct x 8.1 which is god old.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/12100/

But what would be the best low profile card under £30/$60

 

[bigshootr8]

For that price range probably a 610. It won't be very good but I suppose if you are after GTA 3 it will get it done.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125427&Tpk=nvidia%20gtx%20610

 

[nimbah_52]

For that price range probably a 610. It won't be very good but I suppose if you are after GTA 3 it will get it done.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125427&Tpk=nvidia%20gtx%20610

Apparently the 610 is just a re branded 520. Should I just get that then ?

 

[bigshootr8]

If you want I have a real hard time recommending these lower chips because it is really a non value to do so. Here is a video of a guy playing gta iv. Keep in mind your system is weaker then his on the CPU/MEM Side
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu8xnhhZGjI

 

[nimbah_52]

I'm looking at a Gainward GeForce® GT520 1024MB with the following specs:
GPU Clockspeed : 810 MHz
Memory : 1024 MB DDR3 (64 bits)
Memory Clockspeed : 535 MHz
Bandwidth : 8.56 GB/s
Ramdac : 400 MHz
Bus : PCI-Express 2.0
Cooling : Fan
Video-Features : HDMI
Connectivity : DVI + VGA

Only thing is the memory clock speed seems a bit low at 535 Mhz. Would it be a problem?

 

[bigshootr8]

low in comparison to what?

 

[nimbah_52]

low in comparison to what?

Compared to the 900MHz speed on the geforce website ?

 

[bigshootr8]

I would look at the EVGA one that gainward one seems to be underclocked or something :\
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=01G-P3-1521-KR

 

[nimbah_52]

Gainward GeForce® GT520 1024MB
GPU Clockspeed :810 MHz
Memory :1024 MB DDR3 (64 bits)
Memory Clockspeed :535 MHz
Bandwidth :8.56 GB/s
Ramdac :400 MHz
Bus CI-Express 2.0
Cooling :Fan

and

Radeon HD 6450
Bus Interface: PCI-E x16 (PCI-E 2.1)
Memory: 512MB / 64-bit DDR3
Clock Speed: 625MHz Eclk / Effective 1334MHz Mclk
Cooling System: Single slot, Passive Heatsink
Bracket: Full Height
Display Support: DL-DVI-D, HDMI, VGA
HDCP: Yes
Eyefinity Support: No
Hyper Memory: No
Microsoft DirectX 11 Support
200-240 GFLOPS Single Precision compute power
TeraScale 2 Unified Processing Architecture
AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology

Which one would be the better of the two? How much more powerful is one from the other?

Thanks

 

[bigshootr8]

I would go with the nvidia solution and here is why. It appears to be a standard 16x slot and with pci express 2.1 I remember pci-express 1.0 boards being a bit fussy with those cards. So to avoid the problem going to the 3.0 standard would be a better way to go.

NOTE: AMD was the only manufacture to go to the 2.1 standard so that is why there was a conflicting compatibility among pci-e 1.0 users.