Overpriced or not? EVGA GeForce GT 730 4GB DDR3 04G-P3-2739-KR





If you are an active computer gamer then you have almost certainly compared your PC specs to system requirements of dozens of games that interest you. Unless if you buy the highest end computer every two years to not worry about game minimum requirements. But when your video card falls short and needs replacing you may check what GPU's are popular at the moment. By browsing Amazon bestseller list for graphics cards you can find many $400+ cards there and may think "There must be a better deals for less". And there is this 4GB GT 730 in TOP 100... "It costs much less than some other 4GB video cards and this game I'd like to play only requires a 2GB GTX 660, so it should be good enough" - this is what some people may think when they see this "gaming" graphics card. Unfortunately it is not good enough for games that require 2GB GTX 660 or GTX 670 by far.
 There are 3 types of GT 730, the slowest DDR3 128-bit based on Fermi, DDR3 64-bit based on Kepler and the best one - GDDR5 64-bit Kepler variant. This EVGA 4GB 128-bit GT 730 is based on the old and slower Fermi GPU verison that was originally launched in 2010 as GT 430, then renamed to GT 530, GT 630 and now GT 730. So this card is basically a renamed GT 430 with 4GB of slow 1400 MHz DDR3 video memory. If you have bought a midrange card in past 5 years, then buying this one will most likely be a downgrade. Keep in mind, the amount of video memory tells nothing about the performance of the graphics card. The price for performance in gaming with this video card is really awful, for 10-15 dollars more you can get a card that is multiple times faster in games.

Specs:
Fermi architecture
96 shaders
Core Clock 700 MHz
Memory Size 4GB
Memory interface 128-Bit
Memory type DDR3
Memory speed: 1400 MHz (effective)
DVI-I, DVI-I, Mini-HDMI


EVGA GeForce GT 730 4GB DDR3 128bit Dual DVI mHDMI Graphics Cards 04G-P3-2739-KR


Positive:
No need for extra power connector, low power consumption
OK if you only play old games and can get it cheap

Negative:
Priced too high to make sense, cost more than GT 1030
Poor price to performance
Not suitable for new and upcoming games
4GB of video memory is useless for gaming on this card




The best graphics card for under $80
AMD Radeon RX 550 is a massive improvement over any GT 730 and it costs about the same.

If you really need a 4GB graphics card

Get a 4GB AMD Radeon RX 560 or 4GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

If you really need a 4GB graphics card for under $80
Get something from used market, even the GDDR5 version of 4GB GT 730 is useless compared to 2GB GT 1030.

Used graphics card 
You can buy a used 2GB GeForce GTX 760 or even GTX 770 for less than cost of new GT 730 4GB. Both of these are massive upgrade from 4GB GT 730 and even 2GB GT 1030. You need a good power supply and roomy case for those cards though.

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