recommend a suitable gfx card

5 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/recommend-a-suitable-gfx-card.140085/

Hello,
one of my friends needs a gfx card.

His pc config is:

Phenom2 X4 840,
Gigabyte 880gm board,
2gb ddr3 ram,
Corsair CX400 psu,
Samsung B1930 monitor.

He is not a gamer. He works in linux only(mostly gimp, opengl progamming and other development works in IDEs like netbeans, eclipse etc).

His requirements:

1> Should run without any issue in linux(This eliminates AMD cards). So please suggest only nVidia cards.
2> The less power hungry, the better.
3> Should run as cool as possible.

Budget: 4k-5k

Another question: If the IGP of 880gm is disabled from BIOS, will it continue drawing power?

Thanks in advance

It is very hard to find a good nVidia card on this range. I think he can have a GT 440 or GT 430 from asus available at this range.

Thanks Cilus

I suggested him AMD5450 earlier. It is only 19watt at peak and 6watt at idle. IMO it would have been prefect for him. But as AMD GFX do not play well with Linux OS, nVidia is the way to go. AFAIK, GT 4xx series cards run hot(and performance doesn't justify its price) and as he does not care about directX11 support, may I recommend GT2xx series cards? Also, if he finally settle for 4xx card, will CX400 be enough for it?

If he is ok to go with GT 2XX series then get GT 240 1 GB GDDR5 version from brands like Asus, Zotac, Biostar or MSI. Their power consumption is acceptable and they will run fine with CX400.
Price will be around 5-5.2K

yo bro go wid GT 240 1GB DDR5.....but try out XFX as a vendor......coz XFX cards hv a little edge over the other vendors......and ur CX400 can easily handle dis GPU...