Graphics card question?

Question

I have a lousy graphics card: 4X AGP 3D Graphics Hardware Acceleration (nVIDIA® GeForce4™ MX 440)
64MB Video Memory (128-bit DDR)
MPEG2 Realtime Encoder/Decoder board
with TV Tuner.

I am running Windows XP with 512MB of memory.
My computer is a Sony PCV-RZ14G

Now my question is, I have 1 free PCI slot should I:
1.) Use this slot for a new graphics card and leave the old there, and if so what is your suggestion for the new card?
or
2.) Replace the old card with your suggested new card with the same capabilities?
or
3.) Just buy a new compy?

Thanks in advance for the help. :D

Answer 1

Do NOT use PCI slot for graphics. It is too SLOW for 3D graphics.

Replace your graphics card with a better one like the ATI 9600 Pro. It does not consume much power, thus won't stress your power supply. Then upgrade RAM to 1Gb.

HOWEVER, if you have other hardware issues with your PC and you now need one to play current games, then go ahead and buy a new computer on the PCIe platform and with a good DX10 card (preferably no less than Geforce 8600GT).

Answer 2

Hi, well to start off, pci slot graphics card can't really boost your performance graphics wise. I suggest buying a new motherboard with a pci-e x16 slot which is the fasted and latest slot up to date. Also, if you do purchase the motherboard, buy a graphics card depending on the following: budget: ati radeon x1300, mid range: nvidia 7600gs or gt, and for performance:nvidia 7950 or the nvidia 8800. If you do not want to configure this things by yourself, you can always custom build it on great CHEAP!!! websites such as ibuypower.com or cyberpowerpc.com. Hope this help :D