I need a budget video card for vista. Any suggestions?

Question

I am a gamer on a budget. I have access to many current games, but my current video card is really bad. I would like to hear suggestions for a good video card that i can get for 100-150$ that is Vista compatible. Also, can somebody tell me which is better - PCI Express Video cards, AGP Video Cards, PCI Video Cards or SLI Video Cards. Thanks in advance

i forgot to say that my processor is an intel viiv e4300 dual core. I think the ATi radeon xpress x200 is for AMD processors... I have 3 pci slots and 1 pci-express 16x slot

Answer 1

For $150 or less, get the factory overclocked versions of Geforce 8600 GT like these and perhaps overclock tem some later if you want them faster:
http://sg.vr-zone.com/index.php?i=4925

Answer 2

Geforce 8600GT. It's what I use and it's runs every game awesome, in the highest detail on 1280x1024 resolution. Not sure about higher resolutions, but that's the highest my monitor supports anyways. Much more affordable then the 8800, and if you run 2 in SLI mode, it will probably run anything in the very highest in resolution and detail. Tigerdirect has them at around $130.

PCI-Express is the new, and fastest standard for video cards. AGP, was the last, PCI...old and slow. SLI is running 2 or 4 PCI-E cards at once, and that requires a SLI capable motherboard.

Also, the 8600GT can use Direct X 10, which works with Windows Vista.

Answer 3

8600 gt its slower than most previous gen graphics cards on old games but is faster in new ones since the main value point of a card is future proofness so I recommend it and its core usually over clocks to that of the GTS (though the memory can't due to its slower rating).The ATI xpress x200 is a integrated graphics chip so its pretty slow comparable to a nvidia 6100 they can barely play any resent games. for the video cards the slots don't matter as a AGP x1950pro is as fast as a PCI-E x1950 pro for example(though PCI has too little bandwidth for modern cards to be decently effective) SLI is using 2 graphics cards and most mid-high end nvidia cards of the 6series up have it(though it was first introduced by the 3dfx voodoo 2 back int he 90's)ATI has crossfire as an equivalent(though less effective then SLI)and S3 mutltichrome (absolutely horrible)

Answer 4

ATi radeon xpress x200 video card...the pci-e is better if you have a 16x slot; use that because it is a LOT faster than 1x,also the x200 has 128MB of VRAM.

Answer 5

u could get a 16 x pci express sli single card, 8500/ 256 MB nvidia