which one? PLEASE HELP

[hodgenutts]

We are wanting to throw a cheap video card into my buddy's computer to free up resources. He is NOT a gamer, but may eventually hook the PC up to his LCD TV. We want to keep the cards price under 40 bucks, and as I said he does NOT play games. Both the nvidia 8500 GT and ATI HD 4350 are under 40 bucks, and both have 512 MB of video memory. I am just curious for the price, which card is better in terms of performance and affeciency as I'm not sure if one requires a smaller power supply vs. the other. He currently has the stock power supply that came with his desktop as it is an Emachines W5243 and I believe it is rated at 200W. We have already ordered him another gig of RAM to upgrade him from the stock 1 GIG to 2 GIGS so i figured a cheap video card would be the other thing we could do to speed him up a bit. Thank you in advance for the Response.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I'd go with the HD4350.

 

[hodgenutts]

ok thank you. Why the HD 4350?

 

[vj8usa]

What are the rest of his specs, and what does he use his computer for? You might not see any performance improvement at all with a new video card.

 

[hodgenutts]

AMD 64 athlon 6400+, I stated in original post that he dosn't play games and he may be connecting the PC to a LCD TV and that we are upgrading to 2 gigs of RAM.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The 4350 should use less power, but either card won't make or break the power bill as they are both low end and are probably within ~5W of each other at idle and load. The 4350 can also carry audio over HDMI, which may be helpful if he does hook his computer up to his TV - so that he can hear sound from his TV speakers without needing additional cables.

This is really the best I can do...
HD4350 using less power than the HD4550
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3420&p=6

The HD4550 vs. the 8500GT/9400GT:
http://www.techpowerup.com/rev...ire/HD_4850_X2/24.html

If we use these numbers (4350 using 4W less than the 4550), then it would seem the 4350 would use about 5W less than the 8500GT at idle and 1W less at load. So they are basically the same, especially if you consider that power consumption does vary from vendor to vendor.

 

[bluemax]

The 4350 will do HDMI aud/vid FAR better, just being a much, much newer part with all the trimmings (because it's built to do exactly what you're asking it to do!)