upgrading a dell workstation to play games: what gpu is better?

[atramentous]

got an sff optiplex

 

want to give it to my little brother for minecraft

 

should i go for the 1650 low profile or rx 6400 low profile for the gpu?

 

6400 is ~180usd, 1650 is ~320usd.

 

the performance seems comparable, userbenchmark shows the gtx as only 15%  faster than 6400, and for the price amd seems more budget friendly.

 

what should i get? these are the two i've ended up at, unless you know of any other low profile options.

[atramentous]

psu is 450w. i want the gpu to be under 80w.

[tkitch]

for nearly double the price, the 1650 is not worth it.  I'd get the 6400.

[atramentous]

4 minutes ago, tkitch said:

for nearly double the price, the 1650 is not worth it.  I'd get the 6400.

so the nvidia software and such isn't better? i thought that nvidia drivers made your card perform better than amd or something

[tkitch]

Just now, atramentous said:

so the nvidia software and such isn't better? i thought that nvidia drivers made your card perform better than amd or something

the software is just different.

 

Any any benchmarks already account for driver performance.

[Bombastinator]

Neither is great, but I’m not sure 15% boost is worth nearly double the price.  That’s high end math not low end math.   Would be if one played games but the other didn’t.   Now a 1650 for a hundred bucks or so (what they sold for before the shortage) would change that quite a bit.  The 1650 may be suffering from shortage pricing whereas the 6400 may not and is merely overpriced for what it is.  I would normally call the 6400 a $70 card. Even though the 6400 price is offensively high it’s not as offensively high as the 1650.  It’s also a lot newer design. The 1650 is kinda ancient.  Even considering a 6400 leaves a bad taste in my mouth though. How old is the kid and what games does he play?  If he’s under 8 and wands to play animal crossing or Stardew valley it just doesn’t matter.  There may be a game or two that the 1650 can handle where the 6400 can’t.  If one of those is his favorite game or something it might be enough to make a difference.  I personally am still sort of shocked the 6400 is slower than the 1650.  AMD blew a real opportunity there.  Make a cable free card faster x than the 1650 and you would automatically have the fastest card that existed in a particular bracket.  I don’t know why they boned that one.  Their newer hardware should be faster with less power.

Edited May 18, 2022 by Bombastinator

[atramentous]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

cable free card faster x than the 1650 and you would automatically have the fastest card that existed in a particular bracket

yea they really dropped the ball on that one

[atramentous]

3 minutes ago, tkitch said:

the software is just different.

 

Any any benchmarks already account for driver performance.

okay thank you

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, atramentous said:

yea they really dropped the ball on that one

It’s sort of saying “here,Intel, it’s ok to be late, have a golden opportunity”. Makes me wonder if there isn’t some sort of operation mincemeat action going on with that one.