What video card to buy?

Question

Hi all its nearly my 15th birthday on April 2nd but i need to know a question for my birthday present =)
Its simple can someone give the name of a fast video card/graphic card in between £100-200.
Information my motherboard can hold AGP or PCI.

PS: Please dont suggest for me to buy a gams console because i prefer RPG games and all the good ones are on the PC.

Answer 1

Find out which cards your applications support... I guess you want to run a specific game or two, so find out which cards are supported by the game.

Buy the best (just about = most expensive) that you can get away with of the cards supported by your game AND supported by your motherboard.

AGP is probably faster than PCI, but AGP comes in lots of types (AGP (AGP original spec), AGP 2x, AGP 4x and AGP 8x) and they are not all compatible. So, no point in buying an AGP8x cards for an AGP 2x board... it won't work. Most boards will handle the designed version and one version smaller... but not one version bigger.

Answer 2

I think you mean PCIe (PCI express), which is twice as fast as an 8x AGP card.

For that sort of cash, you'll get something pretty decent, in both an AGP or PCIe version - at the moment, I am led to believe that the NVidia 8800GTS is the best available, whereas on AGP, I can recommend the x1950 Pro from ATI, although NVidia are dominating the market at the moment, ATI are reportedly releasing a new chipset (R600) some time in the near future, which will generate some mucvh-need competition in the market-place, leading to cheaper prices for us, the consumers!


All in all, not a great time to upgrade, but I guess that you can't delay your birthday!!

Hope this helps.


http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?SAP-950P5A

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-88GTS3

Answer 3

Do you have an AGP of PCI Express slot. If you have PCI Express make sure that is what you buy as these are the best and fastest around at the moment. AGP is dying out and I doublt there will be a new generation of these cards.

You could try one of the new Nvidia 8800 DX10 compatible cards as the are the fastest on the market.

Look at

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/3320575/EVGA_e_Geforce_8800_GTS_320MB_PCI_E_Graphics_Card/Product.html

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/3310655/EVGA_e_GeForce_7900_GT_KO_SuperClocked_Version_PCI_E_256_MB_GDDR3_Graphics_Card/Product.html

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/918183/BFG_GeForce_7800_GTX_256MB_GDDR3_VIVO_TV_Out_Dual_DVI_Graphics_Card/Product.html

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/918166/BFG_GeForce_7600_GT_256MB_PCI_Express_Graphics_Card/Product.html

Hope the help. I currenlty use a 7600 GT which works fine at the moment. I will be upgrading soon to an 8600 when the come out in April/May.

Answer 4

My favorite video cards are by nVidia. Here is a link to thier site. As for a choice between agp and pci, I'd take agp any day. Get as much video ram as you can afford. It will make the graphics scream.