Cheap Video Card?

So, I was going to bump my old post, but alas.

Basically, I recently built a new PC, very happy with it, even though its having a few issues, I'm managing to fix them up fairly well, with the help of GWG Tech Support of course.

However, one small problem, when I built this PC, a friend promised me he would give me his old 8800 GT to last me until I could pay for a real card shortly after starting college, problem is, his girlfriends PC died, forcing him to use it on her new PC. So I am now looking to get a new video card, thing is, I know nothing of video cards, at all, oh sure, I know that they come in various 1000 ranges, at least for Nvidia, and that apparently EVGA is a good group to get them from, but thats about as far as my knowledge goes.

The main thing I'm wondering right now is how much a good card will cost me? I currently only have about $140 left over from getting all my college stuff, and am currently hoping to find a card that will at least last me a few years before needing to be replaced, if thats at all possible at that price range. I'm not looking for anything fancy here, I don't need to run Crysis on High, or anything like that, I just want to play GW, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, and hopefully not have to replace anything when GW2 comes out, and am wondering if thats even possible at that price range, I honestly don't care if its a Nvidia or a ATI, as long as its a good gaming card, and won't be useless by next year.

Oh, and I have a PCI 2.0 AMD Mobo, in case thats important.

For that much money i guess you can get Ati 5770. And you will be able to play Crysis on high

save a little more and get a 5750.

theres no real reason to buy a 5770 unless you desperatly cannot spend the extra $20 or so. The 5750 is a much card than the 5770

Did you mean 5850?
Yes that is a better card, but is also a bit more expensive.

sorry, numbers aint my forte when ive just woke up lol

nah i was thinking 5770 and the 5750

i was in the market to buy a graphics card 1 week ago as my old card (nvidia 8800gts) decided to blow up.

i read alot of reviews and pretty much everywhere said that the 5770 is a monster card for the money and that the 5750 didnt really have a place anywhere in the market as the 5770 offers more performance for very little extra money.

i went for the 5770, gained 16fps and more than happy with the purchase

so yeah, get the 5770!

you will be hard pressed to find a 5700 series gpu for $140 right now, in any case, unless you really want DX11 you are better off getting an HD 4850 or a GTS 250.

if you aint into upgrading your PC every year, you would be crazy to not buy an ATI card with DX11 support

for me it was between the gts 250 and the ati 5770 and the eyefinity and dx11 swayed it for me

agreed, however the both the 5750 and the 5770 are slightly above his budget (although the 5750 is close enough to be doable imo), In any case the 4800 series out performs the 5700 series by a small margin in current games, it really depends on how important DX11 is to you.

Take a look at this, it may help:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...card,2544.html

Alrighty, so I'm looking at either the Radeon 5750 or the Radeon 4850? ( or the GTS 250? How good a card is that, will it most likely be able to play Guild Wars 2, and will it still be able to at least play things on low in 2-4 years? I don't upgrade every year D: )

I can get a bit more cash, I still haven't exhausted the old "Mom, Dad! I need $50 more for books :3" approach ( Yes I am a terrible person, sue me ), and I should still be getting $25 from my old PSU Rebate soonish, but I was hoping to not spend every penny I had on a vastly new video card if I could get something that would do the job for a bit cheaper.

Also, this is going to sound really really stupid, but whatever. Basically, when I play anything new, Dragon Age, Mass Effect ( but not ME2 >.> ) or any other games similar to that, my system can handle them, but its really really slow about it, not to the point of unplayability, just real slowdown in the world around me. I'm wondering, is this caused by the fact I'm using an onboard 8200? I have a 2.8 Dual Core Processor, and I have 2 gigs of ram ( or really 1.75gigs, evil onboard video card ) and am mainly wondering if it is the video card causing this issue, or if I might need to get something else to help fix it as well.

yes, the integrated video card would be the cause for poor performance. a new video card (any of the three in fact) will greatly fix this problem.

the 4850 and the GTS 250 are the most powerful out of the three. however, the 5750 has the lowest power requirement and the only one that supports DX11.

Moriz is right on the money

I don't know about ME2, but any of the video cards mentioned will handle the games you listed just fine. I suspect ME2 would be fine as well, but you may need to back it off from max graphics settings to maintain good framerates... dependent on the resolution you play at of course.

Well.

How can I tell how much power my PC is using right now? Or is there no way besides taking everything I have in there, and adding it all up? I don't want to go buy a new card, and then find out my PC doesn't have the power to handle it.

And what happens if I don't have a card that supports DirectX11?

a typical modern desktop computer without a graphic card, will use just under 100W. your computer's ability to support a graphic card will depend on its power supply. if the system is a pre assembled unit, its power supply is likely to be too weak for the 4850 and GTS 250.

DX11 actually doesn't count for a whole lot right now. there are too few games available that utilizes it. not to mention, the 5750 is not powerful enough to really utilize its DX11 feature to any great effect.

actually, if you can find a radeon HD 4770, that might be the best bet for you. it performs on par with the 4850, but does it at less than half of its power draw.

I have a 550W PSU. >_>

So basically, gun for the 250 or 4850 then?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...-369-_-Product

that should be your best bet.

If you can spare an extra 20$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102858

What is your power supply, tell us the name and power. You need to check if your PSU can power a decent video card and has the proper connectors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-022-_-Product

that power supply will easily handle any video card in your budget - get whatever you can afford and you will be fine.

VIDEO CARD = The one thing you SHOULDNT go cheap on

newegg has a 9800GT (just a hair under a hd 4850 in performance) for a measly $69.99 after rebate with free shipping right now - check their email promotions link on their homepage to get the promo code for it. FOr that price you can't go wrong and it will do what you want it to.