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Need help in choosing a graphics card [solved]


theYinYeti
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Hello,

 

I currently have an Asrock ConRoe945G-DVI, thus an integrated Intel 945G chipset.

 

I need something more powerfull for Need for Speed Carbon (commercial) and Rigs of Rods (free). Besides, I need:

- PCI Express (because of the motherboard),

- S-Video or Video (because my TV is an old cathodic with SCART/video),

- DVI (because of my current 22″ LCD monitor).

Finally, given the choice, I prefer low noise and low electricity consumption over unneeded performance (the two titles I mentioned are not very demanding).

 

I first thought I'd never find a card with both S-Video output and PCI Express format. But looking harder, it seems quite a number of older AMD, and a few older NVidia are still available for sell.

 

Basically, it seems to me the best choices still to be found are:

- 65€: the Radeon HD 4730 (like this: HD 4730 example)

- 100€: the Radeon HD 4850 (HD 4850 example) or the NVidia GTS 250 (GTS 250 example).

 

Even though I don't want to buy a gaming beast of a card (I play very few games), I'm the kind to change of PC every 8 years, and of graphics card barely more... So I don't want too lame a card!

I have zero experience with graphics cards and PC games (NFS is the first “modern†commercial game I have), and I fear the HD 4730 is already too old to last until my TV becomes HD (five years from now?).

 

What do you think? What would you advise?

 

Yves.

Edited by theYinYeti
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I hope it'll work well too, I generally only buy nvidia cos I had so many problems with ATI but perhaps they are better now. Sorry I didn't see the post the first time around - only just saw it :(

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  • 1 month later...

For those interested, here's a follow-up.

It happens the 4850 did not have the SVideo plug as advertised. So I sent it back and got a 4770 instead:

— more silent

— more economic

— less hot

— almost as powerfull :)

 

Conclusion: I'm really happy with the result, using ATI proprietary driver. The TV output works fine, in all available modes, and performances are good enough. There's one strange thing though: although the desktop is fine at 1680x1050, any game will behave strangely (slow and saccaded) if its window is 1024x768 or bigger…

 

Yves.

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