I'm completely clueless when it comes to video cards, but I think I need a new one so that I can play some of the newer games available and/or eventually make the switch to Windows Vista.
My computer is a 3 GHz hyper-threaded P4 with 1.5 gigs of RAM. The video card is an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 that came with the computer, and I believe it's a PCI card. I don't want to spend much money, so what card would give me the best bang for my buck? And will a new video card generally speed up games?
2007-06-07 15:17:56 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
For gaming you are going to want a tad more RAM. Id say 2g is safe but 4g is really nice. Realistically though it seems to be not that much of a change from 2-4 gigs of RAM.
As far as anything I have heard and seen - Vista blows chunks. It is memory intensive - fluff, and creates more problems then what it is worth for all the hype, at least as far as gaming is concerned.
As far as the video card goes... it really depends on what games. I have done a ton of mmorpg gaming and am an ATI Radeon fan. For 60 bucks you can get a 9800 pro and play and be mildly annoyed with lag. The 300+ dollar Gforce 8800 series and the Ati xtx1900(what I use) will still lag sometimes(considerably less) but with internet connection, server lag on their side, masses of people in the same area. It is just worse on a lower end card so it is up to your patience. 512mb cards are a good thing.
Lastly if you are going to but a new total system - wait. The quad core and Direct X 10 compatible stuff is going to be the next generation as far as tasty gaming is concerned.
Hope it helps
2007-06-14 20:48:39 · answer #1 · answered by Smilinglorax 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If your motherboard has PCI slots only (NO AGP or PCIe) like an Intel 845GVSR, you are out of luck. You have a business desktop that can never be a gaming PC. The PCI bus is too slow for 3D graphics acceleration. You will just waste your money on expensive PCI cards that will never give awesome improvement because the PCI slot will just slowdown any good card you put in there.
2007-06-08 00:52:48 · answer #2 · answered by Karz 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your fx5200 is most likely an agp card.A very good agp card :Asus 7600 gs .It has 256 mb ddr2 400 mhz core 120 USDollars.You should be able to play all direct x 9c games with this card.Vista sucks and is going to suck for awhile.I would not upgrade because a lot of stuff doesn't work with it yet.
2007-06-07 22:28:13 · answer #3 · answered by kevin k 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Find out for sure what kind of interface the card has, and what your motherboard supports. If it's PCI I'm not sure if you'll be able to find anything worth upgrading to. If your motherboard has an AGP slot then go to Newegg.com and look at the AGP video cards to find one with good reviews in your price range.
2007-06-07 22:32:30 · answer #4 · answered by Colin H 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First off Vista is poo give it a year! I been using a Phillips sound card and I play alot on music in a chat room.I play directly through the sound card so it's nice and clear. For my own enjoyment I have Creative surround sound with subwoofer! It masages my feet while jamming!! hehehe and some spots in movies and games it'll scare the pee out of me! hehehehe i average over 12 hours a day online and this souncard been in use in a couple puters for the last good 5 years! I can't complain one bit. Good luck!
2007-06-07 22:29:33 · answer #5 · answered by Oh 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
you should buy the geforce 8500GT. it has support for directx 10. it converts normal video to HD resolutions and is superfast, taking off all the load of graphic processing from the processor. the blazing perforance delivered comes at a relatively low price of about $99. its a gamers dream.
2007-06-08 02:31:20 · answer #6 · answered by Anish Saha 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Check this one out from Amazon.com:
Diamond Viper ATI X1600 PRO PCI Express 512MB Video Card
Twice what yours was and I only paid $150 for it.
2007-06-07 22:24:36 · answer #7 · answered by Cable Dude 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋