Best Graphics Card For GW?

xxreaper008

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

Does anyone know if this is a good or great graphics card?

128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory

I'm buying a pc soon, and im stuck on picking the grapics card.
What do you think is he better, I want to play games at 1280x1024x32



Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 [Included in Price]


128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory [add $50 or $2/month2]


256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X600 SE HyperMemory [add $90 or $3/month2]



Which is the best buy and or the best type?


~Thanks in Advance~

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

SPECIAL NOTE

any card from ati that has SE,LE in the name are crippled budget cards that are best to avoid.

what budget are we talking?

xxreaper008

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Loviatar
SPECIAL NOTE

any card from ati that has SE,LE in the name are crippled budget cards that are best to avoid.

what budget are we talking?
About a 100$ budget... The thing is I'm buying a dell, and that was the only option for custimaization. Any pci express graphics card out there tahts about 100$ ot less?

chris_nin00

chris_nin00

Dun dun dun

Join Date: Aug 2005

Reddit Guild

R/

Don't get an SE,LE

A normal X300 is fine.

xxreaper008

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by chris_nin00
Don't get an SE,LE

A normal X300 is fine.
Will i be able to play GW fine, maybe with antilashing

Lambentviper

Lambentviper

Banned

Join Date: Nov 2005

Noobs Just Took Halls [WTF]

Mo/E

i got a new dell 3 months ago. I wish i would have realized i could choose my own graphics card though...playing with a 64MB integrated kinda sucks...

the only slots i know of on my motherboard are PCI, so im thinking of getting this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....0934680 42109

its a ATI-Radeon 9250 DDR PCI. 256MB.

xxreaper008

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lambentviper
i got a new dell 3 months ago. I wish i would have realized i could choose my own graphics card though...playing with a 64MB integrated kinda sucks...

the only slots i know of on my motherboard are PCI, so im thinking of getting this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....0934680 42109

its a ATI-Radeon 9250 DDR PCI. 256MB.
Same thing happened to me when i got my first dell. the good graphics cards usually over heat for me.

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by xxreaper008
Same thing happened to me when i got my first dell. the good graphics cards usually over heat for me.
here is what i have which is listed by all the reviewers as the most video/dollar.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814122201

3 year warrenty from a good company.

newegg.com is a top rated reseller.

you can use this to check for other cards simply changing from best rating to lowest price etc and i have filtered the list for PCI-EXPRESS already

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...x&Order=rating

the prices are all over the place so you might find a good price on page 5 when filtered by best rating

Lambentviper

Lambentviper

Banned

Join Date: Nov 2005

Noobs Just Took Halls [WTF]

Mo/E

the one you posted the link to is a PCI-E card....

not only does it state it, but i can tell from the bus arrangement

DeepFyre

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jun 2005

you know im planning on buying a new video card, and Im pretty sure that I have a PCI slot, but I'm not sure if its express or not, how do I figure out?
edit: are there any pros/cons to express pci?

Lambentviper

Lambentviper

Banned

Join Date: Nov 2005

Noobs Just Took Halls [WTF]

Mo/E

as far as i know PCI-E is the best/most recent slot out there.

PCI slots are often plain white. Ahh, heres a little pic:

http://www.viaarena.com/images/articles/pcie%20002.jpg

LiQuId StEeL

LiQuId StEeL

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2005

/u/liquidsteel30

Ego Trip From Rank [ZERO]

W/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepFyre
edit: are there any pros/cons to express pci?
Express is the platform/slot that all ATI/nVIDIA (the major chipset manufacturers) are producing the new stuff for.

@OP: Is there a specific reason you are looking at a dell? If you are actually looking for decent performance, I'd suggest going to www.ibuypower.com and looking around. I have seen nothing but satisfaction coming from that site, and it is usually cheaper for a better system (gaming-wise) than a dell.

If you have a decent technical understanding, and some decently evolved google skills, you can also consider building your own system and saving even more money.

@DF: Start - Control Panel - System - Hardware tab - Device manager... somewhere in there should be a listing of the hookups... look for AGP or PCI-E (pci express might be there also). If you see one of them, it is more than likely the format you have. All? computers should have a PCI card, but frankly... ther performance of those sucks.

@Lambent: I'd stick away from the 256mb version of the 9250(?). The chipset won't use the ram efficiently, and the 125mb version actually runs faster than the 256. A friend of mine found that out the hard way.

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by xxreaper008
About a 100$ budget... The thing is I'm buying a dell, and that was the only option for custimaization. Any pci express graphics card out there tahts about 100$ ot less?
If you're set on getting a Dell, call them and insist on a system with an open PCI-E or AGP slot. A friend of mine was in the same situation. I got on the phone with Dell with him and we worked out getting him a system with some upgrade options. Take the integrated video option and get someone on the phone that can guarantee you that your system will have an open PCI-E or AGP slot. If they're offering those cards as upgrade options there's probably an open slot, but make sure. Some big OEM companies have several versions of the mainboards for certain systems and will sometimes try to give you a 'stripped down' version if you don't specify what upgrade options you want.

There are plenty of decent video cards out there for ~$100 that you could just add yourself.

xxreaper008

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

Whats the the disadvantages of SE graphic cards?

awesome sauce

awesome sauce

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2005

Usually faster core and memory speeds

ange1

ange1

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2005

Mo/

i thought the x300 is worst than the new integrated video cards from mother board

sorry x300 is faster than the newer nvidia and ati integrated. but still, the new boards with nvidia6150 or atixpress200s can do pretty well with guildwars already, they beat my ati 9250 from my research.

oh 9250 runs guildwars fine...

awesome sauce

awesome sauce

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2005

there are many different kinds of integrated cards. I doubt that anythin could be worse than the integrated intels. But, some AMD based motherboards now come with ati radeons built in.

Dex

Dex

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Chicago, IL

Black Belt Jones

R/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by awesome sauce
Usually faster core and memory speeds
Actually, I think the SE and LE versions of most video cards have slower core clockspeeds and less/slower memory. It's the XT/Pro/Ultra/GT/GTX versions that are faster.

Lambentviper

Lambentviper

Banned

Join Date: Nov 2005

Noobs Just Took Halls [WTF]

Mo/E

I have an integrated intel and i can confidently say they suck.