Help choosing a graphics card

[lionhard]

Now some may say this is the wrong place to be asking this question but its the only forum community im on really and EB is the only game i play.

Now i currently have a Nvidia geforce 8400 which is bottom of the range and old now and im looking to buy myself a nice christmas present. It struggles to play med 2 and wont play empire. So ill obviously need a nice new 1 to play EB2

My pc is a low profile 1 so i need low profile graphics cards, the best 1 iv found is the Sparkle 9800gt 512mb ddr3 pcx http://www.tronixcomputers.com/sparkle-9800gt-512mb-ddr3-dvihdmi-lprofile-retail-p-1104.html?m1track=googlebase

When i spoke to a computer company near where i live they said the best card for me is the GIGABYTE ATI Radeon HD 4350, http://firstreact.co.uk/details.php?p=2GRGIG-435OC-512I&mess=1+item+has+been+added+to+your+basket.&msgtype=2 the specs on this card are aweful compared to the sparkle and its a third of the price, but the guy i spoke to insisted it was better and would play todays games with ease.

I was also looking at this card http://www.tronixcomputers.com/galaxy-9600gt-512mb-ddr3-lprofile-green-hdmi-graphics-card-p-986.html

I want the best low profile graphics card i can get around the £100 limit. Please help EB community :)

[Karamazovmm]

This guy is lying to you, the HD 4350 will give you almost the same performance that you have today with you current graphics card.
There are some important things to see.

1- Series

Nvidia
9800>9600>9500>9400>9300>9200
and for the suffix GTX+>GT>GSO

ATI
4800>4770>4600>4500>4300

Yes there are newer graphics card, but they aren't low profile, like the gt 200 series for nvidia and the hd5000 for ati

2 - Quantity of the ram

Since you're going to play strategy games, you might as well buy a card with more ram, for the amount of units that it will have to process. Your best buy would be 1gb

3 - PSU

What's the wattage of the PSU? Remember buying a card with more power, you might need a dedicated power connector to the card

4 - Heat

Buying a card more powerful will generate more heat, and as such you will have to be more careful to put it in a such compact pc

5 - Advice

this article should shed some light on your quest http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491.html, it's a reliable site, and maybe look if there's low profile available for this one http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gt-240,review-31731.html
The gt 240 is apparently your best buy, look if there is a low profile card, if not I might recommend the 9800 if the heat is not a problem and if it is the 9600

[lionhard]

Thanks for ur advice, i really want the 9800gt but no where in UK seems to have it :((((

[mountaingoat]

eh they are in abundance down here

i would say go with ATI if you would also like to play many older games ( STW and MTW for example)

[antisocialmunky]

Buy a EVGA, BFG, of XFX card to get the good warranties. XFX manufactures ATI cards so go look for it on newegg.com.

[SwissBarbar]

I have an ATI Radeon HD4890, is perfect

[Karamazovmm]

yes he would go the ATI way if the gt240 wasn't almost as powerful as the HD4850, and since that ATI makes only the HD4600 series below in the low profile format it would be rather difficult for him, asper shopping in newegg... he lives in UK

[mountaingoat]

we don't even know the CPU specs , could be bottleneck depending on the setup.

[antisocialmunky]

If its a strategy game then it probably is the bottleneck.

[Nachtmeister]

This is bad timing for buying a performance graphics-card... Wait until 1-3 weeks after christmas.
And if you are still running on a LGA-775(intel) or AM2(amd) platform, you might want to consider going for a whole new setup... And a DIY-computer is not going to be a mission impossible cost-wise.

Consider an
MSI 770-C45 mainboard with a
Phenom II X2 550 processor and
2-4 GB RAM, recommend G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT (which is a 4GB kit of 1066 mhz DDR3 RAM that *works* with the MSI board) - then add an
XFX HD4770 graphics card to it and you're done.
Reason for an ATI card - this specific one has a low TDP (only 80 watts) and it is still VGA monitor compatible via a simple adapter plug that comes with the retail package; it is currently around 80€ in Germany and should be priced similarly in the UK.
512 MB RAM, dual DVI, one of them backwards compatible to VGA, 128bit memory interface... So, roughly double all stats of your current card.

Otherwise, if you have the cash, I would recommend NVidia because of much better drivers and compatibility with non-M$ operating systems (it can be SUCH a mindfuck to get even an old ATI card to work with Linux... Which does not mean that it's always the case, but you have a greater probability of getting NVidia cards to work with new stuff).
If you go for an NVidia card - make it a GTS 260.

MB - ~60€
CPU - ~70€
RAM - ~70€ (and these are all christmas-hype prices)
GCard - ~80€
======>>280€

... meaning you get an entire new system with great future upgrade capabilities (quadcore cpu when the fast ones >=3 GHz drop below the 100€-mark, up to 1666mhz RAM, and one of those nice PCIe-2.0 cards with a 448bit memory interface...)

Anyway, whatever you do, w-a-i-t until *after* christmas!!

I hope this helps...


---EDIT---

Since the issue of power supply units was mentioned above - with the setup I recommended, the CPU and graphics card each consume below 100 watts; to be on the safe side, round up to 100 watts each, and if you are not overclocking or adding any other fancy powerstation-components, you should be able to make it with a 300 watts power supply unit, so chances are good that you will not need to buy a new one. Depending on the one you are using now, you might need a MOLEX-to-PCIe-adapter (for the graphics card). Check with your vendor for retail package contents; some graphics cards come with all adapters you might possibly need.

If you are using a computer case that came with a slot-processor setup (as opposed to a socket-processor setup), maybe getting a cheap new case would be a good idea - my old computer had severe heat issues because of the way the power supply was allocated in it. It was blocking the air intake of the processor fan, causing the system to auto-shutdown due to cpu overheating when under even light workloads.
Newer cases avoid this issue by having the PSU installed above the mainboard, not opposite to it. With slot processors, this was not a problem because the air intakes were parralel to the mainboard, not vertical to it...

[lionhard]

I just ordered the sparkle 9800gt, im running a 240w psu, iv heard the specs for it are a 270w min psu so im hoping its gonna run on my 240w :S thx for all the ideas guys xxxxxx

[Karamazovmm]

Lionhard you will need another psu, the margin that we use is about 30% or more of power needed than provided, with such tight fitting you will probably experience the pc shutting off while in use and probably fry the psu...

Yes strategy games may cause stuttering and slow motion with low power cpu, but in the most cases the bottleneck really is the gpu, don't believe it? take a look at the diy section of tom's hardware, the budget option usually has a "low power" cpu (something usually with two cores), but it performs astonishingly well, even with world in conflict which is a much heavier enterprise (in both cpu and gpu) than the MTW2

[mountaingoat]

like previous post , you will need a much higher PSU maybe 400-450 with (decent quality) ..

[vartan]

I just skimmed over this before answering, and may have not seen the question to the fullest extent. If I read correctly, OP wants a low profile graphics card great enough to play EB with wonderful graphics quality but without spending over 100 pounds? 100 quid is ALOT of money when it comes to graphics cards IMHO. I paid something right around 55 USD for my low profile Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4650 card (for my HP Slimline PC), and I play EB on 1680x1050x32 and highest settings.

[lionhard]

Ok instead of struggeling trying to get a graphics card that fits i have built (well my freind) has built me a gaming machine and i think u guys are gonna be impressed :). I used my 2.33 ghz core duo out of my compact replaced the old fan for it with a huge new crome 1 which was 30 quid (just for a processor fan lol), got a top of the range asus motherboard which has some unbelivable features. Iv got the 9800gt and it works perfect.

Bought a new coolermaster realpower PSU, used my old internal hard drive which is only 80 gb but iv got an external Hard drive that is 800 gb so its cool.

Best of all the case http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-158-CM&utm_source=froogle

With the copper and crome finishes inside the case, as well as the green neons and the funky lights on the motherboard this thing looks like its gonna take off, im hapy an been playing EB all day today and iv gotta say the effects and minor details this thing picks up are just wicked

Oh an iv got windows 7 ultimate edition installed which is a lot beta than XP but is takin a while to get used to some unbelivable features it has.

Prob gonna look at gettin some decent speakers next but i spent 400 quid gettin this thing togeather so savin money for crimbo :P

[vartan]

I am glad for you. Have loads of fun my friend. Is that a core duo or a core 2 duo? If it is a core 2 duo I hope you are running 64 bit version of windows to take advantage of all your ram.

[lionhard]

he installed the 32 bit windows 7 by accident and we cudnt be arsed going back lol, its fast enough though !