Low End Video Cards Rant - Are they still terrible?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,347 words · ~6 min read
0:00
On the 16th of November 2013, Linus released a video called Low-End Video
0:04
Cards Rant and Radeon R7240 Unboxing and
0:08
Review, which was known internally as low-end graphics cards are. You can
0:13
click here to go check it out. If you do go check it out, scroll down a bit to
0:17
the comments. This is why we were determined that we needed a follow-up. I
0:21
will address some of those that commented and their misconceptions and
0:25
try to add a bit of my own points to the conversation through some interesting
0:29
benchmarks. Let's do this.
0:40
Apacers AS720 is a dual interface SSD
0:43
with USB 3.1 typeC on one end and SATA
0:46
on the other with read speeds of up to 540 megabytes per second and right
0:50
speeds of 450 megabytes per second. Check the link in the video description
0:53
to learn more. The first comment I'm going to address was from Michael H aka
0:58
Freakazoid 777. Michael claimed that he
1:01
could think of many situations where one would want to buy a lowprofile ultra
1:05
cheap graphics card, but that Lionus's gamer mind clearly polluted his ability
1:10
to think outside the box. A little aggro, but regardless, Lionus already
1:16
replied, and Michael admitted that he may have been a little off the point
1:19
with that one. The point Lionus was trying to make wasn't that no one could
1:23
ever use a lowprofile graphics card. The point he was trying to make is that the
1:27
R seven240 is actually too expensive for
1:30
the performance it delivers, making it a terrible value. This is not only true
1:36
for games, but also for any application that relies on GPU power. So, thinking
1:40
outside the box, if you needed the compute performance, it just isn't
1:44
there. Macaffer claims that people don't buy these for gaming anyway, unless
1:49
they're illinformed. that people should buy these if, say, they have an older
1:53
motherboard that the video out died on or they just need more ports in general.
1:58
Sorry, but that would also be illinformed. If someone just needs more
2:02
video out ports, buying this card is literally throwing money away. If you
2:07
just need a graphics card so you can hook up more monitors, you can pick up
2:10
something like the GT210. It's 30 bucks on Amazon compared to the 70 for an
2:15
R7240. Has DVI, HDMI, and VGA
2:18
connections. is passively cooled and if you spend $35 total, it has free
2:24
shipping. So, grab yourself a couple snacks and a drink. Within a couple
2:27
days, you've got some nom noms and a GPU for half the price that is going to be
2:32
equally capable of driving your extra monitors for non-gaming or compute
2:36
applications. If you don't care about low profile, which is likely, but your
2:40
problem lies more on the affordability side of things, I would still definitely
2:44
not ever buy this card. There are comments talking about needing a
2:48
graphics card but not having the money to get to the price performance sweet
2:52
spot. Lionus suggested just waiting and saving. But we also understand that this
2:57
isn't an option for everyone. If this is
3:00
your budget and it's not going to change, that's fine. Buy something used.
3:05
Check out Scrapyard Wars. We build pretty kick-ass computers for like 300
3:09
bucks all the time. and the budget that you'd have for something like an R
3:13
seven240 looking at my local used sites like Craigslist could get a GTX 660,
3:19
which would kick its ass in terms of performance. So, no, that's not a valid
3:23
argument. Basically, if all you need is a low profile card, get a different one.
3:28
If you don't care about gaming performance, this is too expensive for your use case. Find something else. If
3:33
you don't have the money for something new that's better, buy used. We're not
3:38
trying to attack people that don't have the money. For the vast majority of my
3:41
life, that's where I was at. We're trying to help them to not waste the
3:45
little that they have on trash that offers no benefit. Okay, so that
3:50
addresses, I hope, the issues people had with the first video, which brings us to
3:54
the new part of this video, the 2016 update, if you will. Since we don't have
3:59
the R7240 anymore, I went out and bought the newest card that I could find in
4:03
that price point. And what I could find ended up being the NVIDIA GT730. We went
4:08
with the green team this time to demonstrate that we weren't picking on AMD specifically last time around and
4:13
that the problem is actually universal. It's basically the same story as the R
4:17
seven240. I put this on our standard graphics card test bench running
4:21
alongside an i7 5930 K in order to not
4:25
have to worry about bottlenecking at all. And then I tested it against a 6700
4:30
K not overclocked using its integrated GPU, the Intel HD Graphics 530. The
4:36
results may be a little surprising. The 6700 K with its integrated graphics card
4:41
handily beat the 730 in Tomb Raider. More or less equaled it in Counterstrike
4:45
and didn't do quite as bad as it did in Far Cry 4. In every scenario, it was
4:49
better. The 730 just had its ass handed to it by an integrated GPU. I realize
4:54
this scenario won't be applicable to a ton of people, but if you will be able
4:59
to save up for more, but need a system now and don't have quite the money for
5:02
everything that you wanted, instead of stepping down your platform and buying
5:06
something like a 730, just wait and run
5:09
your iGPU for a bit and get something more sensible later on. Basically, what
5:14
we're trying to say is that there are lots of good approaches. Buy a cheaper
5:19
lowprofile card with the video that you need. Buy used or use your iGPU or APU.
5:25
The only terrible option is buying an entry-level card like the R7240 or
5:30
GT730. Speaking of good solutions, Crunchyroll
5:34
is a site created by anime fans for anime fans, which usually is actually a
5:38
pretty good solution. They offer the most current episodes of new shows
5:42
straight from Japan, like Erased or Active Raid. And they have large
5:45
collections of popular anime series that everyone has heard of, like One Piece or
5:49
Nudo. All of them are professionally subtitled within an hour of their
5:53
premiere in Japan. So, head over to crunchyroll.com/lininus. You get a 30-day free trial of
5:58
Crunchyroll Premium. That gives you no ads. You can watch it on whatever device
6:01
you want. Consoles, even phones, tablets, laptops, computers, 1080p
6:07
streaming. Like I said, episodes straight from Japan. And if you like it
6:11
after those 30 days, it's only $6.95 a month. So again, crunchy.com/Linus.
6:16
Check it out. Thanks for watching, guys. If that video sucked or if you still
6:20
somehow disagree with us, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get
6:24
subscribed, hit the like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using
6:27
our Amazon affiliate code to shop for stuff at, you know, Amazon. Buy a cool
6:32
t-shirt like this one in the comment in the description down below thingy or
6:36
with a direct monthly contribution through the forum. Now that you're done doing all that kind of stuff, you're
6:40
probably wondering what to watch next. So, click the button in the top right hand corner to check out this video
6:44
where we unbox and review a card that is great to buy used. It has been featured
6:49
on Scrapyard Wars twice. It's not that cheap, but the value is actually pretty
6:53
good. So, yeah, it's a it's a 290. It's
6:56
an R9. It's an R9 290. It's it's up there.