No, this post is titled ‘Gaming on the (not so) cheap’, this one is ‘Gaming on the cheap’. They’re different. In the former, I talked about the powerful, yet not-too-expensive Geforce 9600GT and the likes. Not too expensive it is, but it still cost you quite an amount of money. The cheapest 9600GT I can find right now will reduce around IDR 1.650.000 (about US$ 170) from your bank.

Not everyone wanting to buy a graphics card are willing to cough that amount. The average people will only spend around IDR 500.000 - 1.000.000 (US$ 55 - 110). So what will that amount of money get you? Quite an amount of power actually, if you know which to buy.

The cheapest graphics cards you should consider costs around IDR 500.000. Yes, you can find cards much cheaper than that, this, for example. if you buy one of those expecting to play Oblivion/Crysis, don’t come crying to me.

Back to the topic, only two products I seriously consider at IDR 500.000 price range. they are Geforce 7300GT and Radeon X1650 Pro.

The first is the strongest of the Geforce 7300 family, leaving all of its siblings way behind. Seriously, it smokes 7300GS and LE. Especially if you can find the ones using GDDR3 instead of DDR2, The price is about the same, so if you find one with GDDR3, snatch it before anyone does.

On the red team (ATI/AMD), the offering is much nicer. You can get an X1650 pro for the same price as a 7300GT. It is a very good deal, considering an X1650 pro performs pretty much equal to better than a 7300GT. So, in this price range, if you can find one, get yourself an X1650 pro, if you can’t, a 7300GT GDDR3 is not a bad option, either.

Moving up the price ladder, we now reach the IDR 750.000 price range. This spot is really hot, we have radeon HD3650 DDR2 and HD2600PRO from the red team, and Geforce 8500GT from the green team. The two cards from the red team performs pretty much equally, but the 3650 supports more…things… I can’t be bothered to mention them, as they are pretty much insignificant for most user, and yes, the 3650 is a little faster.

From the green team, we can find an 8500GT sitting comfortably at that price range. Well… I’m not sure  I can reccommend this. But if you either using linux or just hates ATI/AMD, get this one.

Yes, those sentences above means that I like 3650 more than HD2600PRO and not really reccommending a 8500GT. But Wait(TM)! In this price range, I also found an 8600GT From Albatron, fully equipped with DDR3. Now that will pack a real punch for only IDR 750.000.

Next up we hit the one million mark. Here we have a Radeon HD2600XT, HD3650 DDR3, and the Geforce 8600GT. Okay, to be honest, the 8600GT is priced at only around IDR 800.000 - 900.000. But I put it here because it performs pretty much the same as a HD 2600XT. Yes, this means a 8600GT is a beter buy than a HD 2600XT. A 3650 performs a little bit better than a HD 2600XT, so if you find two of them at the same price, get yourself the 3650. Remember, I’m talking about the GDDR3 version of all the card in this price range.

Now, if you’re not a gamer, you can find yourself satisfied by buying a 7300GS, 7300LE, or radeon HD2400Pro, just for the sake of using a graphics card. If you have onboard graphics, though, a graphics card will become less interesting.

I realize this article will be obsolete by a… week, maybe, if I’m lucky. I can’t always write this kind of article, so if you need the most recent update, look for the prices and find a review on the internet. This should help you, too.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, those cards comes in PCIe only. Maybe I’ll make something like this with AGP later. Emphasis on maybe.