# Gt520 (1 gb) vs gts 450 (1gb)



## TankerHC

I am currently using a GT520 with 1 Gig of DDR3. Someone I know is selling a GTS 450 with 1GB DDR5. My questions are:

1. I dont play a lot of games but I do play MS Flight Sim X and also hit a lot of graphics heavy (Video) sites. Would I see any improvement with the 450?

2. I do a lot of video editing for friends and family, again would it be any kind of upgrade to add the 450?

3. Will it make much of a difference in refresh rates?

4. Being that it is a used card, what is the max you would pay for it. New I see them going anywhere from $98 with shipping to $140 with no shipping.


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## FuryRosewood

the gts450 will trounce the 520. if you can get it for a good price, grab it. Just one question, is the PSU enough?


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## TankerHC

FuryRosewood said:


> the gts450 will trounce the 520. if you can get it for a good price, grab it. Just one question, is the PSU enough?



I am using a 1000 Watt Corsair.


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## claptonman

Yeah, a 450 would be great compared to a 520.


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## spirit

TankerHC said:
			
		

> 1. I dont play a lot of games but I do play MS Flight Sim X and also hit a lot of graphics heavy (Video) sites. Would I see any improvement with the 450?


Back when I had a GTS 450 1GB I played FSX at high settings and it ran fine. A GTS 450 would own a GT 520 at FSX. You won't be able to max out FSX on a 450, but you'll be able to play it at medium-high settings at around 1280x1024 resolution. 



			
				TankerHC said:
			
		

> 2. I do a lot of video editing for friends and family, again would it be any kind of upgrade to add the 450?


Depends what software you use to edit video, not all software takes advantage of CUDA which is a technology that allows the GPU to render video. Adobe Premiere Pro supports CUDA, but Sony Vegas does not, so you wouldn't see any advantage if you use Sony Vegas, but if you use Premiere Pro and you set it up to use CUDA, then you would see an advantage. I used a GTS 450 for video editing and yeah it was fine.



			
				TankerHC said:
			
		

> 3. Will it make much of a difference in refresh rates?


No, that's your monitor that determines the refresh rate. I think you mean FPS? Yes, the GTS 450 will achieve a higher average FPS than a GT 520 on just about every game out there.



			
				TankerHC said:
			
		

> 4. Being that it is a used card, what is the max you would pay for it. New I see them going anywhere from $98 with shipping to $140 with no shipping.


As it is a last-generation card, and soon to be two generations old, I wouldn't pay more than $100 for one, maybe $120 at max (that's excluding shipping). $98 with shipping seems about right for a used two-generation old mid-range GPU.


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## jonnyp11

Not really, isn't the 5770/6770 about the same performance as it, and they are about 110 new with rebates around 90, and either free or 7 for shipping. Also, the gts250 is almost as powerful, barely less, and they're like 55 or less on ebay. I would see if he'd take 60-70


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## FuryRosewood

you guys arent reading what the OP is saying, this is probably going to be far cheaper than a retail price on a card, so any arguements here are invalid. to the OP, just grab the GTS450.


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## TankerHC

FuryRosewood said:


> you guys arent reading what the OP is saying, this is probably going to be far cheaper than a retail price on a card, so any arguements here are invalid. to the OP, just grab the GTS450.



He is asking $95 for it. Nothing lower. Fair Price?


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## spynoodle

TankerHC said:


> He is asking $95 for it. Nothing lower. Fair Price?



Meh. Not really. Tell him he's on crack on something, considering the fact that he's trying to sell you a used card for the price of a new one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127606
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161395
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150602
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161379


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## jonnyp11

That's what people want for them on ebay, but people on ebay are retards and only look at used things, and don't ever think to compare what they pay for it to the what a newer and equally powerful card costs. Tell him no, and grab a slightly older but just as strong card for a chunk less if you want to upgrade, otherwise, a 5770/6770


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## TankerHC

jonnyp11 said:


> That's what people want for them on ebay, but people on ebay are retards and only look at used things, and don't ever think to compare what they pay for it to the what a newer and equally powerful card costs. Tell him no, and grab a slightly older but just as strong card for a chunk less if you want to upgrade, otherwise, a 5770/6770



Yea, Our local Best Buy has the 6770 for $89


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## FuryRosewood

ouch yea, 95 for that card is not very good price, its equavalent to a 9800GTX+ roughly, and you can probably snag one of those for close to fifty

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-NVIDIA-...579?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3a7306d453

theres a 50 dollar PNY GTX, but its refurbed, id go with this card though, ive owned them in SLI, they work pretty well, tho not at higher resolutions, but that honestly would even beat the GTS450


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## jonnyp11

FuryRosewood said:


> ouch yea, 95 for that card is not very good price, its equavalent to a 9800GTX+ roughly, and you can probably snag one of those for close to fifty
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-NVIDIA-...579?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3a7306d453
> 
> theres a 50 dollar PNY GTX, but its refurbed, id go with this card though, ive owned them in SLI, they work pretty well, tho not at higher resolutions, but that honestly would even beat the GTS450



Yeah, if you don't mind using used parts without warranties, you can save a good chunk, and use something like this for an idea of relative performance

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

that 9800gtx+ is just a bit slower than a 5770 but nearly half the price.


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## spynoodle

Personally, I would not get a 9800 GTX, given that it only supports DirectX 10. I would limit the options to only Radeon 5xxx cards or newer and Geforce GTx 4xx cards or newer.


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## StrangleHold

^^^ above.


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## TankerHC

Went on over to Best Buy and bought the XFX R6670 2GB.


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## Darren

Best Buy is 95% of the time way overpriced. Did you price match with them at all?


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## jonnyp11

Denther said:


> Best Buy is 95% of the time way overpriced. Did you price match with them at all?



Agreed, although they have good deals sometimes, saw an ocz fatality 550w for like 55 or 65 w/o rebate, not bad.


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## TankerHC

Yes, did some price matching, they were 35 dollars under on this particular Card than anywhere else I looked.


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## TankerHC

After adding the 6670, my Novabench score jumped over 100 points. 

Verified NovaBench Score: 778


Test run on April 12, 2012 at 01:16
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

AMD AMD Phenom II X4 960T running at 3375 MHz

AMD Radeon HD 6670 GPU

16371 MB System RAM (Score: 197)
- RAM Speed: 3992 MB/s

CPU Tests (Score: 417)
- Floating Point Operations/Second: 104038536
- Integer Operations/Second: 369500228
- MD5 Hashes Generated/Second: 905906

Graphics Tests (Score: 150)
- 3D Frames Per Second: 456

Hardware Tests (Score: 14)
- Primary Partition Capacity: 56 GB
- Drive Write Speed: 119 MB/s

Edit: After looking at some comparisons, I wonder how good that is considering this scored a point higher:
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz running at 2999MHz
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
RAM: 2047 MB

But it also bumped my overall PCMark7 score from a 2014 to a 3518.


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## spirit

spynoodle said:
			
		

> Personally, I would not get a 9800 GTX, given that it only supports DirectX 9


Hmmm.... my understanding is that the GeForce 8xxx cards were the first to support DX10, and that the 7xxx series were the last to only support DX9. So surely the 9xxx cards support DX10?


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## spynoodle

vistakid10 said:


> Hmmm.... my understanding is that the GeForce 8xxx cards were the first to support DX10, and that the 7xxx series were the last to only support DX9. So surely the 9xxx cards support DX10?


Edited. Sometimes I forget, given that my Radeon x800 is archaic.  It's still not the best idea though, IMO.


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## spirit

spynoodle said:
			
		

> It's still not the best idea though, IMO.


I agree with you. The 9800s were good back in their day but today you can't really play any of today's games on them, they're too old, and remember the whole GeForce 9 series were mostly just reboxed 8 series cards with a die shrink, so really the 9 series cards are actually older than we think they are. 

But yeah - back on topic, I'd go for the GTS 450.  It's a world above and beyond the GT 520. Stay away from the 9800.


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## TankerHC

OK, so I have the 6670 installed, it benchmarks high in every area except for 3D Rendering with DirectX11. What can I do about that? It's about 200 points lower in most areas compared to similar systems with the same card.


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## Jamebonds1

Guy. As long as i know about video game.  Geforce 9XXX and 2XX is still good for video game.  It is for those who can't afford better video card.  Like i see 8400 GS cost 80 dollar in best buy and GTX 560 140 dollar on newegg.com, but i got 9600 GT for 40 dollar.


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## spynoodle

TankerHC said:


> OK, so I have the 6670 installed, it benchmarks high in every area except for 3D Rendering with DirectX11. What can I do about that? It's about 200 points lower in most areas compared to similar systems with the same card.


That's weird. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, though. As long as it performs on par in actual games, you're fine.


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## jonnyp11

Do you have the latest drivers?


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## TankerHC

jonnyp11 said:


> Do you have the latest drivers?



Yea, when I registered it automatically updated to the latest drivers. One thing I should note, I tested it with 3DMark11. The drivers were classed as up to date but not authenticated. The message was that it could take up to two weeks to authenticate the drivers now that they are in the database. I dont think this would have any effect on measuring the DirectX11 3D Rendering performance.


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## StrangleHold

You got Rev.12.3 drivers installed?


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## TankerHC

StrangleHold said:


> You got Rev.12.3 drivers installed?



My driver version is 8.951.0.0  

I have downloaded the Rev. 12 and it is in the AMD folder but when I attempt to update the driver through Device manager Windows tells me that the best driver is already installed.


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## wolfeking

Do not worry about the windows driver updater. Use driver sweeper to remove 8.9 and then install 12.3 and you will be fine.


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## TankerHC

First a comment and then a couple of questions. After having run this 6670, the upgrade comparison from the GT520 is incredible. Didnt know what I was missing. Last night I ran Unigine Heaven DX11 a few times and the graphics at different settings is amazing. The only game I play is MS Flight Sim X, the graphics upgrade was again, incredible.  I use two 42 inch monitors and playing on one it was so realistic I was leaning over when the plane turned, lol. But I have a couple of questions.

1. What does "Tesselation do"?

2. Should Tessealtion be enabled or disabled? It is currently disabled.


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## linkin

In a nutshell...

Tessellation disabled:






Tessellation enabled:






Note that there are varying levels of tessellation and the more you use, the more intensive it is.


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## Jamebonds1

linkin said:


> In a nutshell...
> 
> Tessellation disabled:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tessellation enabled:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Note that there are varying levels of tessellation and the more you use, the more intensive it is.



Your picture link isn't work


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## spirit

Left is disabled, right is enabled.

Tessellation gives the objects more depth making them look more realistic. This is from the Heaven Benchmark I believe.


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## Jamebonds1

It is pretty nice with Dx 11 but Tessellation isn't that important in my life.


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