What is the best Graphics card for my PC?

Question

I currenty have an Nvidia GE Force 6600 (256kb) which is very good, but the new splinter cell game is not that smooth on it? My budget is about £50 would this get me a better card than the one I have atm? My pc is a top spec media one made by HP and had !gb ram and a 3.4 gb processor

Answer 1

well done,another nvidia user,much the better card,anyway your current geforce 6600 is far better than anything you will get for £50 so i reckon you would be better investing in either a sound card or a memory upgrade
the 6600 is a good card.it has pixel and shader model 3.0 and has 256mb(not kb) which is more than enough for playing splinter cell,although you may need to turn down a few settings
if you still want another card,then a radeon x800gto would be a good upgrade but this retails at around £100 so you would need to add a few quid,also if you want to stay with nvidia a geforce 7800gt can be bought for around £100 again,this is a better card than the radeon and much better than the 6600
i personally would save your money for the moment and then shop on-line and check these websites for the best bargains on the web
dabs....http://www.dabs.com/
newegg....http://www.newegg.com/?CMP=KNC-overturesmx&ATT=hp
any problems or advice ,let me know

Answer 2

At that price point you won't find a huge improvement from your current card, but you might get a moderate boost from a newer series card like a 7300GT or even the 6800, which is pretty cheap now.

Going to a MUCH better card like an ATI X1900 or GeForce 7900GT would run upwards of 125 GBP. The 7950GT is even better, and more expensive. And don't even consider the newest gen Nvidia 8800 cards which will be way overpriced for a few months, at least until ATI introduces new cards to compete... The previous poster is quite correct, a new video card may mean a power supply upgrade since many of the newer PCI-E cards require a 400+ watt PSU with a connector.

Check gpureview for a comparison of any two cards you're considering, here's a quick look at the 7300GT vs your 6600...

Answer 3

I dont think you will upgrade too much with spending just that. You wont be too happy with the gain, if there is any at all. My suggestion is to save your money and get a 7800gs AGP.

Edited to add:

You will most likely need to upgrade your power supply as well. A prebuilt PC manufacturer only puts a power supply in for the needs of that PC. So keep that in mind when you upgrade.

Answer 4

Quote [My pc is a top spec media one made by HP] so you need to spend £200 to get anything worth putting on your rig.

Answer 5

personally i would go with ATI cards instead of nvidea.