shopping for a new video card.

[earlyre]

well, my trusty OLD Radeon HD2400 is finally having issues.
I mean, it's still working like a champ, but the fan is seized. it's been in at least 4 computers, and is only in this PC to replace the card that came in it that failed within it's first year...

back in the day that i bought it, THE place to get a good deal on tech stuff was NewEgg.now it would seem not to be.
where is "The Place" nowadays?
any recommendations for a decent card?
no gaming, at most HD Video playback.
Needs a VGA port, not buying a new monitor, and HDMI.
i'd rather not spend $100

 

[AntsinmyEyes]

hardwareswap

 

[ebr1190rx]

I used to use pricewatch... looks a bit different now than it used to

 

[earlyre]

not married to them, but i've always been preferential to AMD/ATI...

 

[Rand]

Literally anything is better than what you had.

What monitor do you have you can get 24" refurbs for under 75$ right now.
easier on the eyes than some.

maybe a amd 5450 or nvidia anything

 

[rubberchicken]

My preference has always been Nvidia cards, as much for the driver support and CUDA feature, but mostly for overall reliability. I have dual 680's in my machine, older son has a GTS 295 (dual processes on one board, like SLI ), wife has a 4xx something, and younger son has a Nvidia 1080 (very high $$). I -might- have a unused GTX 280 somewhere that I can let go ultra-cheap. let me see if I can find it.

 

[Killer223]

i have a gtx 460, pay shipping n its who ever wants it.

 

[Tomioka]

Most of the newer generation video cards won't have VGA support thru the DVI port unless you use an aftermarket HDMI to VGA converter but I don't know any monitor made in the last 10 years that still use a VGA connection. Unless you have a monster CRT that you still use but if it's some rubbish 15" LCD trash it.

If you can hunt around an AMD RX460 or nvidia 1050 should suit your needs. Current tech like hardware VP9 decoding for Youtube videos is very useful.

edit: Most budget cards still include a VGA connector. The XFX AMD R7 240 video card still includes a VGA port.

 

[901Memphis]

What's wrong with Newegg? They are still fine.

This is probably over kill for what you do but it represents a solid value.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127906

 

[wkcars]

What's specs/watts of your power supply or what can it handle? Does it have any or how many pci-e 6 pin power connectors?

 

[javacontour]

FWIW, the onboard video on my home computer was going out. I installed an ASUS NVidia GeForce GT 710. I got it from MicroCenter for $40 - $10 mail in rebate.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/460388/geforce_gt_710_2gb_ddr3_video_card

2GB of RAM on board. Works fine for web surfing, e-mail, etc.

I don't game, so it's probably overkill for what I do with my desktop.

But should give me a few more years with this machine before I have to upgrade/replace.

Edited to add, it's passive cooling, I think it uses no more than 25w of power, about the same as the onboard from what I could tell. This machine only has a 300w power supply, so I didn't want or need something that would draw a lot of power or add fans to my case.

 

[HerrStig]

The fan ought to be easy to change.

 

[ATS-V]

I prefer NVIDIA cards as they work with Linux without fuss. eBay can be a good source for older cards.

 

[NJ_Car_Owner]

People brought up a good point about the power supply ... sometimes adding something requires upgrading something else. I just upgraded my video card to a NVIDIA GT730 with 2 GB DDR5 memory because my photo software uses the video card to do it's manipulations. I chose this card because it is low power and didn't require any other upgrades.

 

[ndfergy]

Do you need a video card? What processor do you have?

 

[funflyer]

I recently installed a Radeon HD6450 in my Dell desktop and it works great. Has 1GB DDR3 memory so it isn't a card any serious gamer would use but is a nice jump in performance over the onboard video. It has VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs. Probably 2x the performance of your HD2400 and about the same power consumption. They're all over ebay for under $40.

 

[asand1]

Originally Posted By: NJ_Car_Owner
People brought up a good point about the power supply ... sometimes adding something requires upgrading something else. I just upgraded my video card to a NVIDIA GT730 with 2 GB DDR5 memory because my photo software uses the video card to do it's manipulations. I chose this card because it is low power and didn't require any other upgrades.

I had an EVGA GT740 with the same RAM and it was a nice little card. No extra power leads needed, low profile for a SFF case, and great Linux support.