More confused than ever - "best" quiet gaming card

ob_kook · Post by **ob_kook** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:46 pm

I was all set to pull the trigger on either a GTX260 or an HD4870 with an Accelero or Scythe to silence it.

But after reading various threads, I wonder if it's worth it or if I should get an older model for cheaper since my gaming needs are modest at best.

I've got a 22" Acer monitor (1680x1050), and currently my gaming is pretty much limited to WoW. I am interested in a couple of new games coming out which will have higher requirements, but that is a ways off yet.

I'll make a new i7 build and will choose decent components and case (Antec Solo most likely), and the thing that I just can't decide on is the GPU.

What would *you* do?

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:50 pm

I'm no expert on gaming, but aren't many strategy games like warcraft frame-rate limited? The 3D demands are generally far lower than in first person shooter games, afaik, and there's only so fast you can play a strategy game anyway. I've tried the strategy game Red Alert 3 with a PC running an ATI 3850 (4GB ram, C2D e8500, 1920x1200 monitor) -- and I don't really see how faster performance would improve the game play -- not unless your gaming keys/mouse skills are way beyond mine. The stock 3850/70 are extremely quiet, btw.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:35 pm

i am with Mike on this on - a 3870 is plenty for what you are playing and will be for a while.

as a matter of fact, i am getting rid of my gtx280 i got for a new build - couldn't make it to wake up properly - and going back to an old hd3870 i have. it's fast enough for now and passively cooled, which is a plus

.

rei · Post by **rei** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:04 pm

i love my ddr4 zalman cooler sapphire hd4670.

trandy1001 · Post by **trandy1001** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:23 am

I agree with above posters, unless you are gunning to play crysis maxed out, you will not need anything above an HD4670 for your resolution. That card is the lowest wattage, but maybe not necessarily the best value for money in terms of performance. So you may want to factor that in. 9800GT/8800GT (I have one of them) and the HD4830's (got one for my brother) are a big step up in performance if you can find them for not much more.

The coolers that come on the cards vary widely in this price segment, it seems, so look around or even consider aftermarket cooling.

Good luck with your purchase.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:13 am

I have a 3870.

It was on a 2.2ghz AMD 939 dual core (4200). I had perfect ram timings, 2 2 2 command rate 1T on ddr400 ram, 2 gigs.

Then, I went to e8400 with CL5 timings on 1066mhz ddr2 ram and used the same card. All of my games responded better. Bioshock maxed out at 1600x1200, Left4dead I have at 1920x1200 and all settings maxed except just 2xAA and 4xAF. Things are smooth, no lag. nice and clean.

I really am doubting the information on websites that use framerate charts. I am not blind and I am very picky about a smooth game, especially and action game. Most people watch movies, movies are done in 24 frames a second. Movies look nice. some are now at 30 and 60 frames if you go digital. Those look a little bit smoother on action scenes if you are closer to the screen. Shrug. Just a comment about graphic card reviews. My setup gets over 200fps on 1920x1200 all settings maxed on Half-life lost coast. I have aax2 and afx4. I never find a blessed difference in an action gaming having anymore than 2xaa. Af can get slightly slightly sharper as it goes, but not enough for a moving image to show up. shrug?

soo....

back to the question: If you could find a really cheap 3870 that would work, or a 4670. I play wow as well with all settings cranked ona 3870 and its super smooth at 1920x1200.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:38 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:Most people watch movies, movies are done in 24 frames a second. Movies look nice. some are now at 30 and 60 frames if you go digital. Those look a little bit smoother on action scenes if you are closer to the screen.

Movies have motion blur though, games have not.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:25 pm

Everything you wanted to know about WoW and video cards needs...

Mike C: WoW isn't a RTS game....it's an immersive MMORPG

Some first hand comments on WoW at 1680 x1050 (see my signature for current system):
- I get 60fps in the wilderness. It slows to 50fps in Dalaran.
- CPU utilization: WoW uses 60% of one core and 80% of the other with my e8400 at 3.15GHz. The same system with a e4300 at 2.5GHz ran near/at 100% load on both cores and ran slower with longer load times.

I think the added cache of the e8400 helped as well as the added speed. That being said, my guess is any dual core > 2.6GHz with 2MB or more cache per core will have enough headroom to not be in the critical path.

GPU-wise: Don't need much horsepower beyond my 8800GTS 320 for max speed. I think mine is bogged down by the lack of memory more than anything else. So, a 4830 will probably work just fine. The 4850 would add some headroom for a future game.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:40 pm

yes, it has been argued and won that if the 8800gts had double the ram, it would fly. or 512 even. its just short on ram and it goo's it up a bit.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:21 pm

WoW is mostly effected by CPU speed, not VGA speed.

i upgraded from a 7600GS to an 8800gt and only saw MAYBE 10fps more in wow at the same resolution and settings.

If you want faster framerates in wow, you need to upgrade your processor, not your video card.

As far as strategy games being FPS limited, if your playing on an LCD panel, then ALL your games are FPS limited reguardless of what the software your running says your framerate is. 60hz=60fps, and all lcd panels run at 60hz reguardless of what your display settings or your monitor's advertised specs suggest.

ob_kook · Post by **ob_kook** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:54 pm

Awesome feedback guys. Thanks for that.

Guess I'll do a little shopping for a slightly lower end and more efficient GPU.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:22 pm

Oh yeah, one last bit....WoW only uses 2 CPU cores.

Olle P · Post by **Olle P** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:15 pm

Vicotnik wrote:Movies have motion blur though, games have not.

You never used a slowish TFT monitor then? Pick the right monitor and you can have all the motion blur that you want!

Cheers
Olle

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:47 pm

GTX 260 and this.

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/p ... anguage=en

I run an 1680 x 1050 also, and for ceratin FPS games...a 260 is definitely NOT overkill.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:14 am

aztec wrote: I run an 1680 x 1050 also, and for ceratin FPS games...a 260 is definitely NOT overkill.

Yes, but for WoW, it most definitely is. By about $150.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:42 pm

uh yeah. that's not over kill.

k ggamethanxXxxXxx

thats over kill for STALKER clearskies.

wow is a primitive game.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:38 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:
wow is a primitive game.

Me beat breast. Look for shinies.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:48 pm

CA_Steve wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote:
wow is a primitive game.
Me beat breast. Look for shinies.

nice

tufish · Post by **tufish** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:07 am

i have the saphire 4870 I gb version and is decent never ramped up in watching movies or common application only in games and even than to a bearable level , and in combination with accelero is exceptional

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:00 pm

I have an X1900XT with 256MB and it runs everything, including Far Cry 2 just fine up to 1200*1024. You don't need a high end card - just get the 512MB newer version of the X1900 series cards.

That would be the 4870/4850/3870. the smart money is always on the middle one in such a case. At $199, the 4850 is a smoking deal.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:37 pm

ob_kook wrote:I'll make a new i7 build and will choose decent components and case (Antec Solo most likely), and the thing that I just can't decide on is the GPU.

What graphics card do you have now? Maybe the i7 upgrade is enough for WoW?

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:52 pm

Most sensibe for that range is HD 4830 or HD 4850. I am not sure what are the couple of the newer games you're intrest. But HD 4850 can eat anything I can throw at it with my 22" 1680 x 1050 resolution Acer.

Just slap accelero s1 with slow spinning fan, you have ugly three slotter but effective and quiet!

You can run pretty much any game almost maxed with HD 4850, Crysis excluded. F.E.A.R 2 should be a challenge but with high details it should playable. But currently 94% of PC games today at the market, can be run easily on with HD 4850 maxed details... I personally think GTX 260 or HD 4870 is overkill in 98% of the cases in that resolution...

rei · Post by **rei** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:48 pm

HD4670 can run The Witcher at 1280x1024 at max detail comfortably (with 4x FSAA and 16x anisotropic filtering) but something newer like Dawn of War I have to run without FSAA at Medium presets.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:52 pm

thejamppa wrote:Most sensibe for that range is HD 4830 or HD 4850. I am not sure what are the couple of the newer games you're intrest. But HD 4850 can eat anything I can throw at it with my 22" 1680 x 1050 resolution Acer.

Just slap accelero s1 with slow spinning fan, you have ugly three slotter but effective and quiet!

You can run pretty much any game almost maxed with HD 4850, Crysis excluded. F.E.A.R 2 should be a challenge but with high details it should playable. But currently 94% of PC games today at the market, can be run easily on with HD 4850 maxed details... I personally think GTX 260 or HD 4870 is overkill in 98% of the cases in that resolution...

that is correct. 4850 is way more than enough at 1920x1200 if you have an i7 especially. e8400 and 1066 ram or go full out i7 and youve made up the difference of a high end gfx card.

anything more than 2x aa 4x af is not a noticable difference either.

ob_kook · Post by **ob_kook** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 2:06 pm

Mats wrote:
ob_kook wrote:I'll make a new i7 build and will choose decent components and case (Antec Solo most likely), and the thing that I just can't decide on is the GPU.
What graphics card do you have now? Maybe the i7 upgrade is enough for WoW?

I've got a GeForce 8600 GTS at the moment.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:52 pm

ew.

i always hated that card.

I forget why.

Well, yes it is good enough. the cpu will do more than you need. However, a 4670 uses very little power. the new 4770 i think its called in a month?? is even faster but useless for wow. the 3000 ati and 4000 ati have a great UVD decoder chip for bluray/hd. very minimal power usage if thats something you might partake in.

cpu and connection latency is key. I play on a hacked free server and its smooth with e8400 and 3870.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:41 pm

ob_kook wrote: I've got a GeForce 8600 GTS at the moment.

See my earlier post on what I get in WoW w/ my system. So, your 8600GTS might be playable, but also might be fairly slideshow-like in Dalaran. The good news is, you could build your new system and then see how well the old card performs. If it doesn't cut it, buy a new card.

ob_kook · Post by **ob_kook** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 11:19 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:ew.

i always hated that card.

I forget why.

Well, yes it is good enough. the cpu will do more than you need. However, a 4670 uses very little power. the new 4770 i think its called in a month?? is even faster but useless for wow. the 3000 ati and 4000 ati have a great UVD decoder chip for bluray/hd. very minimal power usage if thats something you might partake in.

cpu and connection latency is key. I play on a hacked free server and its smooth with e8400 and 3870.

I'm not a fan of that card either. Actually, I originally purchased it because it was passively cooled and was the mid range in performance at the time.

I know it's good enough to run WoW, but I wouldn't mind something with a little more juice. I've been leaning towards a 4850 with an Accelero S1.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:37 pm

4850 would run around 10x faster for gaming.

that's a nice jump.

I think that's a solid purchase.

ob_kook · Post by **ob_kook** » Thu May 14, 2009 7:58 am

Well, I bought the 4850 with Accelero for my e8400 based PC, and it is really nice. Runs a lot hotter than what I had in there before, but the performance cannot even be compared.

I was thinking about the same combo for my Phenom II X4 based computer (which sees some light gaming, BlueRay movies, and office apps), but then the 4770 was released.

If it really runs between the 4830 and 4850, but is $100 and 10W less (per XBIT) at idle, this might be a better choice, no?

I don't think it would fit an Accelero without cutting down the fins, but that's a rather easy mod...

Anyone using this yet, and what are your thoughts?

Kook

More confused than ever - "best" quiet gaming card

More confused than ever - "best" quiet gaming card

Thanks!!!

Re: More confused than ever - "best" quiet gaming

Re: More confused than ever - "best" quiet gaming

Re: More confused than ever - "best" quiet gaming

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