What kind of video card should i buy?

Question

i want to update my pc and i was wondering what kind and size of video card i should choose (i want a least a 256mb).

Answer 1

It all depends on your motherboard, AGP or pcie, you need to answer this question before anybody can give you a good answer:)) and then of course it depends on your budget

Answer 2

At the bottom of the range you are looking at £50 for a radeon 9600. This will strugle with newer games such as battlefield 2, fear etc.

next up a radeon 9800pro can be bought for under £100 they offer reasonable performance in most of todays games and come with 256mb of ram

if you got more to spend then a geforce 7900gt will offer much better performance but will cost around £200

then again if you got money to burn then a geforce 7950GX2 with 1gb of ram is pretty much the best you can get and is available for just under £400, you can even link 2 of them up with an sli motherboard for the ultimate performance when the corect drivers become available.

Answer 3

Without knowing whether you have AGP or PCI-e slots for it, what your budget is and what you intend to use it for, we can't really give you a decent answer...

Video work tends towards ATI
Games tend towards Nvidia

£35 to £535?
There are 256Mb cards throughout that price range!

If it's AGP (over PCI Express) your options/range gets reduced.

My personal preference is towards Nvidia purely on the basis of better driver support. One point to bear in mind is that AMD now own ATI, should be interesting for the future.

Another factor is noise, the 'lesser' but this rattlingly fast cards support heatpipe solutions over fans - makes them quieter. Asus have a few nice cards like that, as do Leadtek

Without knowing the answers by best advice is to use Overclockers online catalogue as a guide / starting place and see which is closest to your needs.

Answer 4

I agree.. It really depends on whether your computer is agp or pci-e?
what your budget is? and if your power supply will handle a new card .What resolution will you play games at?If i knew all the above i could recommend something..The only thing i will say is Dont get a 6600gt it was a good midrange card a year or so ago but is much too slow to play games with decent settings at a decent resolution now and for what 2 of those would cost in Sli.. You could get a X1800XT that would totally stomp sli 6600gts.

Answer 5

if money isnt the object go for a radeon x1900 series card,they are the best ati card at the moment,and will play any game you throw at it
in my opinion,theres no need to spend hundreds of pounds on a video card,you can start at £40 for a ge-force fx5500 or a radeon 9550,these are low end cards but are great if you need a card for multimedia purposes(dvd editing,photos,c.a.d),if you need a card to blast them frame rates out ,then for £100 you can get a radeon x1600,or a ge-force 6600,or why not look at a matrox card(http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm),these cards are not as well known as nvidia or ati but are just as good,
there is a good offer at the moment from a firm called evga
who are doing a ge-force 7600(256mb ram) for only £148 ,i tried to find a link to the page but their server was down,try later at www.evga.com
good luck

Answer 6

Ok I think you should buy The ATI Radeon X800 XL The good: High-end 3D performance at a midrange price; driver software offers great feedback for changing 3D settings; quiet.

The bad: Requires third-party software to overclock; only one DVI port, so a second monitor must use the analog VGA connection.

The bottom line: is unmatched when it comes to providing top-notch 3D speed at a low price. It's our current favorite standalone card.

Answer 7

Unfortunately everyone has their favourite. For some time now NVidia has been the most popular, and reliable. I would recomend them. But you havn't said if your computer supports AGP or PCI. You will need to know this before you buy the card.

Answer 8

What humours me is that everyone that has answered so far doesn't know what u use your computer for!!
So what are you going to use it for??
If you are going for games i suggest a nVidia GeForce 6600[gt] its perfect mid range and come in both PCIe and AGP flavours... i think....
also if you have a SLI motherboard you can upgrade to double it with the gt later on if u feel you need to extra power

Answer 9

undesirable, the best enjoying cards that ought to take earnings of this form of slots you have is a lowly GeForce 6200, i'm speaking so as a results of fact AGP 8X is arranged in a various way from AGP 4X and enjoying cards won't in high-quality condition. you acquire new era liquid crystal reveal, yet with out understanding for an out of date hardware that can't ever take earnings of it.

Answer 10

Make sure you get one that is compatible with the memory and monitor you have now. Do some research and read some reviews at http://www.newegg.com