If you're like me - an avid gamer - you will need to be have top graphics
performance in your PC. The problem is, I find myself unwilling to pay top
dollar for graphics performance sometimes. Why? Because high-end graphics cards
are SO expensive. A performance video card may well cost over $500! Certainly
way out of budget for the average PC gamer.
So what do you do? Well, you try to find budget video cards
which give you very decent 3D graphics performance without breaking the bank
...
I went to TigerDirect.com to check out some of these
value-for-money video cards and I must say, there are actually many models to
choose from. And they ain't pushovers in terms of performance either.
In this article, let's take a look at some of the best budget
video cards out in the market as at June 2011.
PowerColor Radeon HD 5670
I've personally owned many of
PowerColor's cards and find them to be of exceptional value. This
PCI-Express 2.1 (x16) model comes with 1GB of DDR
memory, DVI and HDMI ports, as well as DirectX 11 support. I tried playing
games like Crysis 2 on this card - sure it does not give you mind blowing
performance. It does, however, allow you to blast enemies at a very decent
frame rate. For a normal PC gamer, this is more than enough.
EVGA GeForce GT 240
This video card comes with 512MB DDR5 memory and
is PCI-Express 2.0 based. All the standard ports like DVI and HDMI ports are all
there. One issue I had with this card was that it is based on an older NVIDIA
GeForce GT240 standard. Also, it has support for DirectX 10.1 (not DirectX 11
like many other cards as at June 2011). Still, a very good and powerful card for
normal gaming.
Sparkle GeForce GT 240
I personally tried this card out in a test
system and found it to give spectacular performance for its price. This card
is really cheap and gives performance quite close to that of the EVGA
GeForce GT 240. It comes with 1 GB DDR3 memory, a PCI-Express 2.0 interface,
as well as , DVI and HDMI ports. I was disappointed to find it only supports
up till DirectX 10.1 natively, though.
ATI FirePro V3700
A very good card with 256MB memory and a PCI-Express
2.0 interface. I found that this card has a dual-Link DVI - meaning you can
hook up to two monitors to this card. This makes it a good solution for
applications which require great color and visual fidelity.
PNY GeForce GT 240
Another card based on the NVIDIA GT240
standard. If you compare this to the Sparkle GeForce GT240, it has only
512MB of memory. But do take note that this PNY card, like the EVGA one
above, runs on DDR5 memory - which gives it a speed advantage. If you're
looking for a budget video card, this one definitely fits the bill.
Conclusion
If you're looking for good
video performance
video without shelling out too much cash, then you should look at one of the
card above.
Recently, I was at my
favorite local computer shop here in Singapore and I spoke to one of the counter
staff whom I am quite close to. I asked him which budget video card sells the
best in the shop. Guess which card he chose?
Sure, "Sparkle" is not a very
well known brand - but it does a good job of delivering graphics performance at
a low price. So I'd say, out of the list above, I'd go for the Sparkle GeForce
GT 240 if you want a real value-for-money video card.
Build
A Gaming Computer For Less Than $1000
Do
you want to build a cheap but high performance gaming
computer? Then you might want to check out How To Build A
Gaming Computer For Under $1000. This eBook package will show you how to
build a gaming
computer for under $1000 - without compromising the quality of hardware and
gaming performance. Get step-by-step instructions and full picture
illustrations on how to install and configure every component in your new gaming
rig.
Related Articles
You may also wish to read the following related
articles:
Build
A Gaming Computer For Less Than $1000