My ancient, massive, power-hungry GeForce 7800GTX (256MB) has served well for many years. Purchased for upward of £300 when new, it was the then-current top-end card. Nothing else was faster.
Due to some recent overheating issues, and a failed PSU, I replaced it with an EVGA GT 430. I didn’t intend to do a massive amount of gaming, just the odd bit of Minecraft and maybe some Half Life 2 (and others from that era).
I think it cost me around £40. With four times the amount of RAM but less memory bandwidth, performance comparisons to the old 7800GTX were tricky. Overall, it was almost as fast if I kept the resolution down to 1280×800.
Then it started overheating to the point where if I asked it to do any 3D work, it would quickly top 95 degrees and then crash, taking the machine along with it. Probably a fan fault.
Due to shortages of EVGA GT430′s, I upgraded (2 weeks after returning the faulty card) to an Asus GT440. The one with GDDR5 RAM instead of GDDR3.
Wow. What a difference!
Considering that the Asus card takes no external power (limiting its design to the 75W maximum allowed from a single PCIe slot), performance is staggering.
The Asus GT440 is noticeably more expensive than other cards in the range, which normally goes against my grain (I like to maximise performance per £). However, on a tight power budget (and a PSU with no PCIe power connectors), the GT440 is the absolute top-end of what is possible.
Bioshock at 1920×1200 with everything turned up to full.
Half Life 2 (and episodes) with the Cinematic mod and 4X anti-aliasing.
Serious Sam HD.
This £70 card blows away my old 7800GTX, which (at the time) cost four times as much and used twice the power.
I look forward to upgrading again in 5 years time to whatever the top-end 75W card may be!
