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Free Radeon HD 7850 vs paying ~£170 for a Graphics Card for my £500 budget?

So this is a follow-up to a previous post. It's worth noting that I've realised the model I have of the 7850 is a 1GB VRAM and the more I've looked into it the more I'm thinking that this free card is just too old and not fit for purpose unfortunately. 

 

That said I'd still like to hear the opinions of people with far more experience than me and any suggestions would be appreciated. So far everyone's been very helpful and while building my first PC is daunting, I'm having so much fun looking at the huge amount of options and info out there.

 

My uncle said he had a free, year old card his department got for £400 last year by mistake that's just been sitting there. I instantly got very excited at what the possibilities could be for my £500 budget with a powerful free card. Unfortunately it turns out it's only an ASUS Radeon HD 7850 (HD7850-DC2-2GD5) first made in 2012 so I'm guessing its kinda dated now. I was originally planning to get an EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti for £140 then cheap out on the CPU and motherboard.

 

So I guess the question really is, what do I do now? I could find a way to raise my budget to £600 if I sell a really old iMac I never used from 2008 and the GPU itself but that could be lengthy.

 

 

 

Here's a link to my OP

 

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If it were me, I'd slum it with the 7850 and buy everything else, then save and buy a better GPU later.

 

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Just now, Elerek said:

1. Take free card

2. Sell free card

3. Profit

 

 

 

4. Buy a card

How much could I realistically get for the card? I'm not finding the exact model anywhere for a reference. 

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6 minutes ago, Abe_R said:

So this is a follow-up to a previous post. It's worth noting that I've realised the model I have of the 7850 is a 1GB VRAM and the more I've looked into it the more I'm thinking that this free card is just too old and not fit for purpose unfortunately. 

 

That said I'd still like to hear the opinions of people with far more experience than me and any suggestions would be appreciated. So far everyone's been very helpful and while building my first PC is daunting, I'm having so much fun looking at the huge amount of options and info out there.

 

My uncle said he had a free, year old card his department got for £400 last year by mistake that's just been sitting there. I instantly got very excited at what the possibilities could be for my £500 budget with a powerful free card. Unfortunately it turns out it's only an ASUS Radeon HD 7850 (HD7850-DC2-2GD5) first made in 2012 so I'm guessing its kinda dated now. I was originally planning to get an EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti for £140 then cheap out on the CPU and motherboard.

 

So I guess the question really is, what do I do now? I could find a way to raise my budget to £600 if I sell a really old iMac I never used from 2008 and the GPU itself but that could be lengthy.

 

 

 

Here's a link to my OP

 

If the card is an asus 2GD5 then that means it is a 2gb card not 1Gb, i run with HD 7770 2Gb and i find it great for gaming, i know it isnt the best out there but it does the job for what i need it to so my advice is to take the free card then upgrade in the future

When a man lies he murders some part of the world 
These are the pale deaths 
Which men miscall their lives 
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer 
Cannot the kingdom of salvation 
Take me home

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5 minutes ago, Abe_R said:

How much could I realistically get for the card? I'm not finding the exact model anywhere for a reference. 

56-70 bucks.

 

Id just use it. Its not that much worse than a 1050 and about the same as  a rx 460

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Just now, jaybob85 said:

If the card is an asus 2GD5 then that means it is a 2gb card not 1Gb, i run with HD 7770 2Gb and i find it great for gaming, i know it isnt the best out there but it does the job for what i need it to so my advice is to take the free card then upgrade in the future

Oh yeah sorry my mistake, the quoted card is the 2GB model you have which I initially thought was the one I had until I read the specs on the box and saw mine's the 1GB model

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1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

56-70 bucks.

 

Id just use it. Its not that much worse than a 1050 and about the same as  a rx 460

Even at 1GB vram? From what I've read I could only play games on decent settings from up to 2012/13

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5 minutes ago, Abe_R said:

Even at 1GB vram? From what I've read I could only play games on decent settings from up to 2012/13

Won't really hurt you too much. Most games don't need that much, and your not gonna be playing on max anyways where you need that extra video memory.

 

Id get a better cpu now and then save up for a faster gpu later. There isn't any gpu you can fit in that budget that in stock. most of the 200 dollar gpus are all out of stock so wait for the next gen and get one later.

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2 minutes ago, Abe_R said:

Oh yeah sorry my mistake, the quoted card is the 2GB model you have which I initially thought was the one I had until I read the specs on the box and saw mine's the 1GB model

are you in the UK? if so then i would suggest maybe trading the card into a place called CEX as they usually give decent prices on old tech like GPU's and ram. if not there then maybe pop it on ebay or something to get a bit of money in your budget for the GTX 1050

When a man lies he murders some part of the world 
These are the pale deaths 
Which men miscall their lives 
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer 
Cannot the kingdom of salvation 
Take me home

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3 minutes ago, Abe_R said:

Even at 1GB vram? From what I've read I could only play games on decent settings from up to 2012/13

If you turn down the texture settings, you should get most games to run, still.

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take the free card, and if you can't use it sell it, but if you have a second PC which you do light gaming or what ever E.G. when you have a friend round or some shit then use it in there and get a new GPU or use the free card in your new PC e.g. get an R5 system and save up for a new GPU which is better like a 1060 6GB or 1070 above

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11 minutes ago, Elerek said:

1. Take free card

2. Sell free card

3. Profit

 

 

 

4. Buy a card

Insert "Sell iMac" along with sell free card. 

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5 minutes ago, Abe_R said:

Even at 1GB vram? From what I've read I could only play games on decent settings from up to 2012/13

I used to play GTA V on a HD 5770 1Gb and had it running medium/high settings with no issues. i now have the 2gb 7770 and run at 1080p high and stream at the same time and the card is great.

 

1gb VRAM might not seem like a whole bunch at the moment but if you took the card and used it until you have more money in the future you could easily upgrade to something better like a GTX 1050/1060 or a new AMD card whichever is in your budget

When a man lies he murders some part of the world 
These are the pale deaths 
Which men miscall their lives 
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer 
Cannot the kingdom of salvation 
Take me home

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3 minutes ago, jaybob85 said:

are you in the UK? if so then i would suggest maybe trading the card into a place called CEX as they usually give decent prices on old tech like GPU's and ram. if not there then maybe pop it on ebay or something to get a bit of money in your budget for the GTX 1050

Yup from the UK and love going to CEX haha. Never bought or sold hardware from them though, there's one nearby so I may go on Friday to at the very least get a quote on what I can for it

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Just now, Abe_R said:

Yup from the UK and love going to CEX haha. Never bought or sold hardware from them though, there's one nearby so I may go on Friday to at the very least get a quote on what I can for it

with CEX i just did a price check and if you sold it to them you would get £19 cash or £28 for store credit, i know its not much but it is something that will add up to help with your budget. and if you buy from them the 2 year warranty is a godsend, i bought my GPU from them and only paid £35 and that alone is what a warranty would cost so it is well worth looking into in my opinion

When a man lies he murders some part of the world 
These are the pale deaths 
Which men miscall their lives 
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer 
Cannot the kingdom of salvation 
Take me home

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Just now, jaybob85 said:

with CEX i just did a price check and if you sold it to them you would get £19 cash or £28 for store credit, i know its not much but it is something that will add up to help with your budget. and if you buy from them the 2 year warranty is a godsend, i bought my GPU from them and only paid £35 and that alone is what a warranty would cost so it is well worth looking into in my opinion

hmmm, if I can't get a better price on eBay then I think CEX sounds like a good bet

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Just now, Abe_R said:

hmmm, if I can't get a better price on eBay then I think CEX sounds like a good bet

plus like you mentioned in a previous post here you have an old imac? if you dont need it also take that to the store with you and get them to give you a price quote on it (if it is working) and see what they offer as you never know it could drastically improve your budget alot, or even they might have a GPU in store that you can trade for after they test whatever you take to them.

 

best bet is just to get anything you dont need tech wise and see what they offer you.

When a man lies he murders some part of the world 
These are the pale deaths 
Which men miscall their lives 
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer 
Cannot the kingdom of salvation 
Take me home

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I was running a 7970 a few months ago, it was able to play all of the games I wanted at a decent quality and FPS. The only reason I upgraded to my current RX 480 is the power usage and heat output, during the summer it would cook me in my office. :(

-KuJoe

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15 hours ago, Abe_R said:

How much could I realistically get for the card? I'm not finding the exact model anywhere for a reference. 

I don't know, but it'd be more than $0 ;)

Build: Intel S2600gz, 2x E5-2670, EVGA SC 1070, Zotac 1060 6GB mini, 48GB Micron 1333mhz ECC DDR3, 2x Intel DPS-750XB 750 watt PSU

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/elerek/saved/3T7D4D

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