Best Under $50 Card

W

wonderworm1

n00b
Joined
Jul 27, 2005
Messages
53
Vote for the cheap @ss champ here. Prices range from $30-$45

Some of the candidates are: (And feel free to add any cards I forgot.)

1. geforce 6200TC 64MB onboard and supporting 256MB.
2. geforce 6200TC 128MB onboard and supporting 256MB.
3. radeon X300SE 128MB onboard and supporting 256MB.

or pay several dollars more and get

4. radeon x550 128MB onboard and supporting 256MB.
5. geforce 6500 128mb onboard and supporting 256MB.

They are all 64bit pathway cards and this will be for a machine that "ONLY" plays games older than UT2004 like counter strike and the like so the user doesn't need any extra power that they will never use.
 
whatever floats ure boat and is the cheapest considering cs is an old @ss game and any onboard graphics card, much less a dedicated card , will do fine, just get a 6200 or x300 and ull be good 2 go
 
id check neweggs open box specials, you might find a hidden gem in there!!!
 
That X700PRO is leagues above the other cards listed. It even has ramsinks on the memory. Very nice buy.
 
Thanks for the great input. That link is an X600 Pro with 256mb DDR memory though, not an X700. So which is the better buy if these are both the same price?

1. Fast and easily overclocked Geforce 6500 with 64bit interface, 128mb low latency GDDR2 onboard and up to 256 with shared, plus DVI out for dual monitors. or
2. X600Pro with 256bit interface, 256mb DDR onboard. No DVI out.

I know the 6500 is a proven strong overclocker and has lower latency GDDR2 memory which may clock up even higher, but it only has a 64bit memory interface. The X600 I do not know much about but it says it has a 256bit memory interface which gives much more potential bandwidth. Just found out that an X600 is just a 9600 Pro on the PCI Express format.

Which one guys? Both are the same price. I should still be able to do dual monitors with the X600 by using my onboard video for the 2nd desktop even if the X600 doesn't have DVI out, right? My bet is the X600 is still the better card?
 
I'd never even heard of the 6500 until you mentioned it. From my quick googling it's a slightly beefed-up 6200.

I couldn't find any reviews on it, but anandtech says its performance is about on par with a 6600le Which is really just pretty much a GF 6200 according to this:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/x550.html

The review compares the x550, x600 pro, and 6600LE. The 6600LE is apparently about the same performance as the 6500 as per anandtech. And accordin to digitlife the 6600LE is basically the same as a (non turbocache) 6200. So it sounds like there's not much difference between the 6200, 6500, and 6600LE.

Important bits:
In conclusion I'll remind you once again that the GeForce 6600LE is none other than the 6200 card, while RADEON X550 is nearly the X600 PRO (but its memory is slower by 50 MHz).
Click to expand...


What concerns the comparison with the 6600LE, the situation is diverse here. The 6600LE is obviously preferable in the traditional NVIDIA demesne (DOOM III and other OGL games). But the situation in HL2 is contrary. That's why we can award victory neither to the 6600LE, nor to the X550. On the average, both cards are equal. Their prices will be a decisive factor.
Click to expand...


So it sounds like x600 pro or 6500 is a coin flip. Nvidia being better at Doom, etc and ATI being better at Half life.

Personally I'd recommend the extra few bucks on the x700 pro. It should be better than a 9800pro IIRC and leaps and bounds better than the x600 or 6500.
 
Cool Thanks. Yes, the 6500 is essentially an overclocked 6200TC (nv44 core) since it's default clock is 450mhz instead of 350mhz and it also has Gddr2 memory instead of regular ddr. I jumped on your deal of the X600pro. Thanks for the great find.
 
Glad to help. The lack of DVI is the only pitfall of the cheapy x600pro but I bet he's one of those types that wouldn't even know...
 
Don't count on overclocking as a major reason to get a card. I got a BFG 6800GT thinking I could overclock it and get better performance but in CSS it only improved 1-2 fps and resulted in my computer hanging when going into and out of standby mode.

Your best choice would be a x600 pro or x700 pro. If not either of those, then I'd recommend spending a little more money and get a used 6600GT from the For Sale section of [H]ardForum.

Good luck with whatever you choose.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top