I'm buying a graphics card for my brother, his machine will be a Phenom X2 550, 2GB of RAM, socket AM2 (not +, so PCIE x16 ver 1). Power supply can handle any of those cards.
Originally I was going to buy a 4350 for the $45 or so they're going for and call it a day, however, I started looking at the performance of them, and sorta hemmed and hawed if I wanted to drop $45 on something that performed like that.
Then I saw the 4770, and figured, That's perfect! Low power draw, low heat, much higher performance, for basically a little more than double.
My hangup is the 4850 and 4870 (including 1GB models) are getting so cheap, they're within $40 of the 4770 - and the performance difference between the 4770 and 4870 1GB is without a doubt large.
I'm going to buy the morning of June 22nd, so I realize I'm asking a tough question...
But: What would you all do?
To me, it seems like between the 4350 and the 4770, you're going 4350 only if rock bottom price is important to you.
Between the 4770 and 4850, it's 4770 unless you absolutely need that extra memory bandwidth, and are willing to sacrifice the extra power draw and heat (which may or may not come with extra noise) to go along with it.
Between the 4770 and 4870 1GB, you're only going 4770 if you care considerably less about performance than about heat and power draw.
D@mn you AMD and your multitude of graphics offerings, you're giving me too much choice at too little price!!!
Chuck
Originally I was going to buy a 4350 for the $45 or so they're going for and call it a day, however, I started looking at the performance of them, and sorta hemmed and hawed if I wanted to drop $45 on something that performed like that.
Then I saw the 4770, and figured, That's perfect! Low power draw, low heat, much higher performance, for basically a little more than double.
My hangup is the 4850 and 4870 (including 1GB models) are getting so cheap, they're within $40 of the 4770 - and the performance difference between the 4770 and 4870 1GB is without a doubt large.
I'm going to buy the morning of June 22nd, so I realize I'm asking a tough question...
But: What would you all do?
To me, it seems like between the 4350 and the 4770, you're going 4350 only if rock bottom price is important to you.
Between the 4770 and 4850, it's 4770 unless you absolutely need that extra memory bandwidth, and are willing to sacrifice the extra power draw and heat (which may or may not come with extra noise) to go along with it.
Between the 4770 and 4870 1GB, you're only going 4770 if you care considerably less about performance than about heat and power draw.
D@mn you AMD and your multitude of graphics offerings, you're giving me too much choice at too little price!!!
Chuck