On the look out for a new cheap graphics card.

martin57

Hi,


I have a five year old desktop with a ATI radeon 4600 graphics card (1GB memory I think on card) runs fine on windows 7, though windows 8.1 doesn't like it, had trouble getting apps to run right on it.


My video software Cyberlink power director runs fine on windows 7 but not on windows 8.1, wont open but if I disable the card in device manager it will open, so I take it its probably the card again.


Going to upgrade windows 8.1 to windows 10 and see how that goes but will probably need a new graphics card.


Anyone with recommendations for a desktop graphics around the £30 mark, not a prolific gamer or anything like that just run the odd game.


Thanks

The_Last_Username

Try :

http://www.ebuyer.com/662446-asus-gt-730-silent-1gb-gddr3-vga-dvi-hdmi-pci-e-graphics-card-gt730-sl-1gd3-brk

at just under £35 + p/p - though if you look they've also got a few "lesser" NVidia 610's too at under £30.
The 730 IS a better card though; not power-hungry yet still lots of "bang-per-buck" COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING of course.

The Radeon 4600 was introduced in 2010, so it's not a really OLD card; are you sure you've got up-to-date drivers?

As comparison, it's diificult to even find a benchmark for a Radeon 4600 ......... but according to videobenchmark the (better?) Radeon 4650 scores 391 whilst the NVidia 7300 scores a much higher 925.
(The cheaper NVidia 610 scores a lowly 356)

Or if you shop around, you might find an NVidia 720 for under £30 & their benchmark is not much lower than the 730 so still a reasonable budget card.

HTH

Fightsback

The_Last_Username wrote: »

Try :



The Radeon 4600 was introduced in 2010, so it's not a really OLD card; are you sure you've got up-to-date drivers?

The Radeon 4000 series ceased to be mainstream supported a long time ago (2012) and now is on the AMD legacy driver which hasn't been updated for nearly two years. The radeon 4600 actually came out in 2008

Go for Nvidia as you get a much longer support cycle

martin57

Thanks for replies folks, Strange I thought I got a reply yesterday from a helpful user Enfield Freddy but can't see it here now, are my eyes seeing things !!


Anyways as I say I can run cyberlink power director ok in windows 7 but won't open fully in windows 8.1, I have had problems before with things not wanting to play in apps store, messing around with drivers for graphics card finally got it fixed, but won't open power director now.


I did a bit of troubleshooting by disabling the graphics card in device manager in windows 8.1 and then cyberlink power director opened ok, but obviously I don't want to stick to that option I want a dedicated graphics card. Will upgrade windows 8 to 10, and see how it goes then.


Thanks for all the advice, can't understand how that post disappeared.

windup

why do you need a dedicated card if the onboard works

enfield_freddy

martin57 wrote: »

Thanks for replies folks, Strange I thought I got a reply yesterday from a helpful user Enfield Freddy but can't see it here now, are my eyes seeing things !!


Anyways as I say I can run cyberlink power director ok in windows 7 but won't open fully in windows 8.1, I have had problems before with things not wanting to play in apps store, messing around with drivers for graphics card finally got it fixed, but won't open power director now.


I did a bit of troubleshooting by disabling the graphics card in device manager in windows 8.1 and then cyberlink power director opened ok, but obviously I don't want to stick to that option I want a dedicated graphics card. Will upgrade windows 8 to 10, and see how it goes then.


Thanks for all the advice, can't understand how that post disappeared.

I retracted my posting as "the last username" came in and offered "superior" knowledge

martin57

windup wrote: »

why do you need a dedicated card if the onboard works

Good point for the moment I have disabled the graphics card and power director runs fine, it mustn't like the AMD ATI card.


Just as a matter of interest how much ram does the onboard graphics allow?


Thanks

Fightsback

martin57 wrote: »

Good point for the moment I have disabled the graphics card and power director runs fine, it mustn't like the AMD ATI card.


Just as a matter of interest how much ram does the onboard graphics allow?


Thanks

Depends on the chipset and how much RAM you reserve for it in the BIOS. IGP (integrated graphic processor) chipsets of that era are incredibly slow.

martin57

Thanks, I just checked the Asus M4A785TD-EVO manual and its a intergrated ATI RADEON HD 4200 says 128mb ddr 3 ram and 512mb shared memory whatever that means.


As long as its able to do some video processing, doesn't that depend more on the CPU rather than only the graphics card, I have 4GB of ordinary ram installed.?