$15 vs $35 for a graphics card: FirePro v3800 vs Quadro k620

[da na]

Looking for a cheap GPU to just provide a display output, or looking for an upgrade from older integrated graphics for a budget gaming rig? Well you've come to the right review.

I have bought both of the cards in the title to compare them, as I often find myself in need of a cheap display adapter that is still capable of decent 3D acceleration for older systems that I refurbish. I won't go very far into the specs, so here's the v3800's and the k620's.

I bought the v3800 for $15 and the k620 for $35. I'll be comparing them to AMD's Vega 8 integrated graphics (since that's a pretty well known APU solution). All tests were run on a system you'd be likely to buy these cards for, an Optiplex 760 with 4x2gb Hynix DDR2-800 1rx8 and Core 2 Quad Q9550. 

Comparison time!

The v3800 is a few years older than the k620 and therefore lacks DX12 support, but has DX11.2 so most modern games will run and it's capable of handling desktop applications requiring newer APIs. They have about the same power draw, 43w and 45w for the ATI and Nvidia respectively. The K620 heats up much faster, hitting its 85c slowdown in a FurMark run after 16 minutes, while the v3800 never made it above 56c over a 30 minute time period. However, the v3800's fan is much, much louder, producing a high pitched whoosh that is clearly audible at idle and under load. It doesn't seem to be PWM controlled. The K620's fan, on the other hand, is quiet even under load and can go to the standard Nvidia 4000-ish RPM without being loud - or noticeable over the sound of, say, a loud HDD or CPU fan.

The v3800 is about half the performance of the Vega 8 while the k620 is about on par. Both cards use DDR3 memory, but the ATI card has 512mb while the Quadro has 2gb. This makes a big difference in games (and benchmarks) but isn't a big deal for daily use. The Quadro is locked down in drivers and can't be OC'd, but the FirePro can be overclocked by 50mhz on both core and memory which I recommend doing just to squeeze the last bit of performance out of this card. Both are capable of light 3D games at 720p (and actually did much better than I thought they would - the FirePro did a little worse than the Quadro with an average of 20 FPS on low settings on Bro Falls, a Fall Guys clone, while the k620 handled it well with 46 FPS on low. Crossout was a very similar story. The main limitation of the FirePro is its VRAM - if it had 1gb it would fare much better.

A final complaint about the FirePro is how it doesn't show GPU usage or VRAM usage in Xbox Game Bar or Task Manager - something many old FirePros do, it's a driver thing and I've got no idea why they do it but both metrics still show in HWInfo. 

Final conclusion: I recommend the Quadro over the FirePro for doing video editing, light games like DOTA, that sort of thing - it's worth the extra $20. But if all you want to do is YouTube video playback, or maybe the iGPU on an old PC is flat out broken and you don't want to spend much, the FirePro is a great choice (it can handle 2 4k videos on 2 monitors simultaneously just fine). 

[adarw]

7 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Bro Falls

lol.

[YoungBlade]

I feel like the Quadro K620 was built for the current GPU-pocolypse. It's stayed relatively inexpensive, but has enough power for light gaming. The 2GB VRAM is actually enough for a lot of popular titles like Minecraft, LoL, Sims 4, or even Fortnite and PUGB: Battlegrounds if you're okay with 60fps in competitive titles. If you want to play a demanding title, like Warzone or Cyberpunk, it obviously won't work, but for older games or e-sports titles, it's a great option. And frankly, those games are what most people play.

[da na]

Just now, YoungBlade said:

I feel like the Quadro K620 was built for the current GPU-pocolypse. It's stayed relatively inexpensive, but has enough power for light gaming. The 2GB VRAM is actually enough for a lot of popular titles like Minecraft, LoL, Sims 4, or even Fortnite and PUGB: Battlegrounds if you're okay with 60fps in competitive titles. If you want to play a demanding title, like Warzone or Cyberpunk, it obviously won't work, but for older games or e-sports titles, it's a great option. And frankly, those games are what most people play.

Yep, it's aged very well. 

And no one knows about it. That's why it's so easy to find. And since its specs are near identical to the Vega 8's, you can look up Vega 8 benchmarks and it'll perform within 5 FPS of it in any game. Haven't tried Fortnite yet but I've heard it runs fine on the Vega - so the Quadro should take it. And driver support for Quadros (since new ones are released less frequently than GeForce) always goes about 2x as long as their gaming counterparts. So it'll be supported for at least 5 more years.

[mariushm]

Wow...  why those particular choices to review...

 

You can get OEM  AMD R5 430 with 1-2 GB DDR3 / DDR5 for around 25-35$  ... about same performance as a 9800 GT or HD 4830 or HD 4770

 

 

R5 240 cards are $15 - $20 and have better performance than v3800 cards.

There's lots of 3-5 or more video cards for even cheaper prices

ex. 5 low profile cards for 50$ ($10 each) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/363552060179

21 normal profile for $155 (7$ each) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/115014588564

 

There's older HD 4650 with 512 MB / 1 GB  of memory ... they're a bit more recent than v3800

ex. 10 cards for $90  (9$ each) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/224125609873

 

and in nvidia camp, you could probably get nvidia gt 210 for around 20$ each .. but it's older and probably weaker than the quadro.

 

 

[da na]

5 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Wow...  why those particular choices to review...

 

You can get OEM  AMD R5 430 with 1-2 GB DDR3 / DDR5 for around 25-35$  ... about same performance as a 9800 GT or HD 4830 or HD 4770

 

 

R5 240 cards are $15 - $20 and have better performance than v3800 cards.

There's lots of 3-5 or more video cards for even cheaper prices

ex. 5 low profile cards for 50$ ($10 each) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/363552060179

21 normal profile for $155 (7$ each) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/115014588564

 

There's older HD 4650 with 512 MB / 1 GB  of memory ... they're a bit more recent than v3800

ex. 10 cards for $90  (9$ each) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/224125609873

 

and in nvidia camp, you could probably get nvidia gt 210 for around 20$ each .. but it's older and probably weaker than the quadro.

 

 

GeForce 210 is 1/5 as powerful than the FirePro so like 1/10 of the Quadro.

Ouch. But yea I know of these cheaper cards and have used them in the past, I’d just never talked about the cheap FirePro before and never used a FirePro this low end so wanted to check it out anyway.