Quiet Graphics Card For Around £100?

They make noise, too.

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tridion
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Quiet Graphics Card For Around £100?

Post by tridion » Wed Mar 31, 2010 4:29 am

I am looking at getting a new graphics card for my PC for gaming but doesn't need to be to end obviously as I'm only spending about £100. I wondered what is the quietest card I could get at this price? It doesn't need to be silent when gaming although as quiet as possible would be good. However, I would like it to be pretty much silent when just using the PC for other things like word processing, video playing, etc.

Are there any recommendations?

dhanson865
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Post by dhanson865 » Wed Mar 31, 2010 8:10 am

I'd suggest the powercolor 5750 fanless (There are two models a fanless and a "Green" fanless")

Either one would be totally silent and a good gaming card.

I'm not up on British pounds or the stores in your part of the world but I think that is close to your price range.

Here is a random store in the UK that has one http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/item-detail.p ... id=3992784

That isn't the Green edition but the slightly cheaper "normal fanless" version. It also might not be the cheapest way for you to get it. I just linked to it to give you a pic and a price in £. I guess it also matters if you were thinking pre tax or post tax on your pricing.

In the US I would have linked to newegg powercolor 5750 as an example but it still might not be the cheapest place to get it.

Spod
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Post by Spod » Wed Mar 31, 2010 9:19 am

For slightly less, Powercolor now do fanless "Go! Green" versions of the 5570 and 5670. They've shown up on Newegg for about $90 and $120 respectively, which should translate to £60 and £80, but in practice will probably be more like £75 and £95 knowing our market. They're not available in the UK yet, so you'll have to be patient, or spring for the 5750, which is a far better card for high resolution gaming anyway. If your screen is only 1280 by 1024 or so, the cheaper cards might make more sense.
Yoyotech has as good a price as any, though you might have to shop around to find this particular 5750 in stock, or look for the Go! Green model.
Personally, I'm waiting for the first passive 5570 that will fit in an Antec NSK2400/Fusion.

tridion
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Post by tridion » Wed Mar 31, 2010 9:35 am

Thanks for the replies much appreciated. The 5750 is possibly a little too much for my pockets. £100 was pushing it but would rather spend under that rather than over that £100 mark which the 5750 would be. I would like that card though as it would proabbly last me quite a while.

The 5570 and 5670 sound interesting though. I'll have to check out some benchmarks of them or decide to save up for the 5750.


Edit-Could anyone tell me if the 5670 is enough to run games in reasonable quality at 1440x900. That is the resolution of my monitor. I don't need to be able to put all graphics settings on max as long as it plays well on medium settings then I'm happy.

Spod
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Post by Spod » Wed Mar 31, 2010 10:45 am

Then I reckon you'll be fine with a 5670 for gaming.

tridion
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Post by tridion » Wed Mar 31, 2010 11:36 am

I am also now looking at the 4670 as Sapphire do an ultimate (fanless) version of it. Seems it is up to the same sort of power as the 5670 just minus the DX11. I'd prefer fanless in some way. Is the loss of DX11 really that big a deal?

lodestar
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Post by lodestar » Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:37 pm

tridion wrote:Is the loss of DX11 really that big a deal?
No, not at all. DX11 offers some superior graphics qualities over DX10, but there is a performance hit - around a 35% drop in frame rates depending on the game. One reviewer of the 5670 commented on Dirt 2 that ".... once DirectX 11 features are enabled, the latest Radeon slows to a crawl....". So it's not really worthwhile on low to medium range cards. DX11 games will always offer an alternative mode, either DX10.1 or DX9. The Sapphire 4670 from sources such as this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ce=froogle is a good buy at £64. Some passive graphics cards downgrade the memory to DDR2, but not in this case where you do get the normal DDR3.

Spod
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Post by Spod » Wed Mar 31, 2010 1:37 pm

The 4670 typically falls between the 5570 and the 5670 in speed, uses slightly more power when idle and slightly less power under load. Some benchmarks here (note that links to one of the worst results for the 4670 - in most other games it beat the 5570). So for £64, it's doing pretty well for a 2 year old design. If it's not fast enough (you can use the 1280*1024 benchmarks for comparison purposes), the 5670 will get you better HTPC features, and perhaps the ability to occasionally use better eye candy in 3D games, but it's a big jump in price, especially for a silent version. Fan cooled models can be had for under £70.
If your future plans involve lots of cutting edge games, upgrading your screen or keeping this card for several years, I'd pay the extra for the 5750. If you're content with adequate performance in most current and older games, then the 4670 is good value right now. If your needs fall somewhere in between, the 5670 is a solid choice, though not always much faster than the 4670.
At the end of the day, you can check out the benchmarks for yourself, look at reviews of the newer cards that compare with the 4670, compare the prices and work out what's best for you. None is a clear loser, so get whatever will make you happy (and yes, saving £50 is a valid reason for being happy!)

dhanson865
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Post by dhanson865 » Wed Mar 31, 2010 5:50 pm

tridion wrote:I am also now looking at the 4670 as Sapphire do an ultimate (fanless) version of it. Seems it is up to the same sort of power as the 5670 just minus the DX11. I'd prefer fanless in some way. Is the loss of DX11 really that big a deal?
It's not really about DX11 for the cheaper 5xxx cards as they aren't fast enough for the games that truly use DX11.

The 5xxx cards have lower idle power draw than the 4xxx cards especially when it comes to the more expensive models. It makes them easier to cool and in some cases quieter because of the lower power draw.

The 5xxx cards also tend to have more video connectors than the 4xxx cards.

a typical 5570 card will idle about 9W and peak about 46W
a typical 4670 card will idle about 10W and peak about 65W

The 5570 won't perform quite as well in some games as the 4670 maybe it's 5 or 10% slower on average but the power savings favor the 5xxx series card in the long run.

A 5670 is about 30% faster than the 4670 so lets look at a power comparison there

a typical 4670 card will idle about 10W and peak about 65W
a typical 5670 card will idle about 13W and peak about 63W

If the 4670 is >30% cheaper then it is worth getting since the power favors the 4670 at idle.

The best comparison around the 5750 is probably the 4850. The 5750 is about 10% faster but it's close enough to even.

a typical 4850 card will idle about 40W and peak about 149W
a typical 5750 card will idle about 13W and peak about 71W

That is cutting the power draw by over half and keeping the performance!

To add to the fun the Green vs non green comparison on the 5750

a typical 5750 card will idle about 13W and peak about 71W
powercolor go green 5750 idle 14W and peak about 62W

The review is separated on an insane number of pages but http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powe ... een/3.html is worth checking at least:

page 3 and 4 for the pics

one of the random pages for whichever game you like that they tested

page 27 for power numbers
page 28 for performance summary (good for comparing specific card vs card scenarios)
page 32 for the summary/conclusion

tridion
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Post by tridion » Fri Apr 02, 2010 5:40 am

Thanks everyone. Lots of info to digest and try and decide.

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