Suggest me a good inexpensive GC for the boy child

JRavens
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Posts: 1,059

Suggest me a good inexpensive GC for the boy child Dec 10, 2015 21:32:16 GMT

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Post by JRavens on Dec 10, 2015 21:32:16 GMT

Hey mates!

Christmas is approaching and the boy child (14) has been complaining pretty bitterly about his PC. None of the new wave of games works very good for him (sub 20 fps

) He has an old Radeon card. My old card died or I would have given him it. Truth be told his rig is pretty underpowered (i3) so I may do other stuff for him, but the least I can is bump him up a bit on the VRAM and such so he can at least get above 30 FPS even if he needs to set things to low.

Any suggestions on an "inexpensive" (sub $100.00 the lower the better) card I can put under the tree for him this year? I've been so preoccupied with work (ummm and maybe Fallout

- father of the year here LOL) I confess I haven't even taken a look through Newegg or anywhere else lately to look for any good deals.

Thanks for any suggestions

And all this science, I don't understand...
It's just my job, five days a week

flanker1six
Old Guard

Posts: 331

Suggest me a good inexpensive GC for the boy child Dec 18, 2015 19:29:57 GMT bontainer likes this

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Post by flanker1six on Dec 18, 2015 19:29:57 GMT

Their take on best budget cards; though prices are US ( I realize there's a fair bit of difference in US and UK pricing), maybe UK prices will be correspondingly low within the norm for there? Under the headings: Best Entry Level and Best Ultra Budget GPUs

www.maximumpc.com/best-graphics-cards/

WATCH OUT! There's a tiger behi..............aaaahhhhhh; never mind!

JRavens
Administrator

Posts: 1,059

Suggest me a good inexpensive GC for the boy child Dec 18, 2015 20:51:19 GMT

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Post by JRavens on Dec 18, 2015 20:51:19 GMT

Thanks for the link! Good stuff

I actually ended up ordering an R7 2GB for him which was just over $100:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZGF0TQY

I dunno squat about AMD really, but Tom's Hardware guide said this was a good card for the price in that range. I woulda sprung for an R9, but that was just a little too much for this particular budget. He's got an ATI chip so why not an AMD card to go with?? Probably gonna be lots of headaches and driver issues getting it to work with new games, but hopefully he can at least play the stuff he normally likes to (bonus - get him off my PC LOL!

)

And all this science, I don't understand...
It's just my job, five days a week

flanker1six
Old Guard

Posts: 331

Suggest me a good inexpensive GC for the boy child Dec 26, 2015 3:28:25 GMT

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Post by flanker1six on Dec 26, 2015 3:28:25 GMT

I recently read they've stopped calling them Catalyst and renamed them something else, and are aspiring to a new more regularly released and confidence inspiring software product. I had 2 or 3 ATI Radeon cards/GPUs back in the day........never had any complaints about them EXCEPT their freakin drivers; which at that time frame, were very substandard to the average Nvidia driver release. Switched to the GREEN SIDE and never looked back; having said that my Nvidia cruise has not been an entirely bump free ride either. You may vaguely and fondly remember Ubi's less than finessed releases of Watch Dogs, FC4 (and the aptly named AssCreed Unity), in concert with SLI and Nvidia. UUURRRKKKK!!!!!

Hope things have worked out for both of you.

Last Edit: Dec 26, 2015 3:30:13 GMT by flanker1six

WATCH OUT! There's a tiger behi..............aaaahhhhhh; never mind!

JRavens
Administrator

Posts: 1,059

Suggest me a good inexpensive GC for the boy child Dec 29, 2015 15:17:16 GMT bontainer likes this

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Post by JRavens on Dec 29, 2015 15:17:16 GMT

Thanks Flanker

Unfortunately my Jedi PC skills failed me and I didn't confirm that his existing power supply had the right kind of open rail (75 watt 6 prong) to power the graphics card (doht! I'm so used to the good old days of molex and berg connectors LOL) so now I need to get him a newer and better power supply. One that actually has, you know, dedicated rails

This is the way of things PC - you upgrade one thing, but that requires another upgrade and so on until you've rebuilt your PC so you can play the next Far Cry game

And all this science, I don't understand...
It's just my job, five days a week

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Post by JRavens on Dec 10, 2015 21:32:16 GMT

Post by flanker1six on Dec 18, 2015 19:29:57 GMT

Post by JRavens on Dec 18, 2015 20:51:19 GMT

Post by flanker1six on Dec 26, 2015 3:28:25 GMT

Post by JRavens on Dec 29, 2015 15:17:16 GMT

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