Hi all I've been out of the computer hardware 'news' for a good long while, only just got myself another desktop PC and i'm on the hunt for a decent low profile graphics card... The machine its going to be going into is a HP Pavilion S3200 SFF box with an E7300 CPU. I've been looking around and I can't make head nor tail of the current offerings, last i remember was the 8800GT was the best card money could buy! I'm intrigued by AMD/ATI's offerings because of their relatively low power usage when compared with NVIDIA cards. purpose of the card will be to run a dual monitor 'office' machine capable of some very very light gaming, streaming HD content and ideally would be single slot (with obv the VGA connector on a separate shield) but overall taking up only one slot. any help is much appreciated! thanks
Radeon 6670 is pretty capable even compared to 8800GT & 3870, obviously the newer mid-range cards like Radeon 5770 are much faster let alone the current high-end cards but for a low profile card it's pretty good. The 6570 & 5670 aren't too far behind but the 5570 & GT240 are where you start getting pretty slow (for gaming). When looking at these lower-end models be careful of the clock speeds and especially type of RAM used (GDDR5 is best) as companies tend to really scrimp on these cards, cutting corners wherever they can. I've been really busy this last year or two so this is all to the best of my knowledge, HTH.
On the NVIDIA side. Palit GTS 450 comes in a low profile version, i think thats the most powerful low profile you will get. There is some talk of a low profile Radeon 5770 doing the rounds that would probably beat it, however, i cant find it for sale anywhere. ^These have quite high power consumption. Next step down would be for NVIDIA would be a 440/430/520. On the AMD/ATI side. I already said about the possibility of a 5770 low profile. The 6570 comes in a low profile version. I cant find a 6670 low profile version for sale anywhere, although there should be one in the near future. For best performance the GTS 450 i think would be best, unless you can find a 5770 low profile. By the looks of what your looking for a 6570 is probably more suited to you. If you can find a 6670 low profile then that would be my choice. Also check Here for an interesting article.
Hi Thanks for replies chaps! I thiiiiink i'm leaning toward a low profile 5670 or 5770 when it becomes available, theres a few 5670's going around the 100$ mark which could fit the bill for price/performance! off to hunt for some reviews now (cheers for that link james!)
