New Graphics Card help

SuicideLemming

SuicideLemming

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2007

Nuns With Guns (NWG)

A/D

After looking around on guru, I've noticed people having similar problems with guild wars crashing when characters go to certain places (ex. Rata Sum) while having the basic intel graphics card. They've advised graphics card/video card upgrades, so I'm looking for a new graphics card for a basic dell inspiron 530 that has windows vista. I'm not looking for "top of the line" stuff here, moreso something in the sub 100$ range that will still run guild wars without problems. Any help would be appreciated.

moriz

moriz

??ber t??k-n??sh'??n

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada

R/

something along the line of the geforce 9500GT should be sufficient for GW. alternatively, you can go with a radeon HD4670. the later is more expensive, but about twice as powerful. both can be found for below $100 USD.

Elder III

Elder III

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jan 2007

Ohio

I Will Never Join Your Guild (NTY)

R/

I believe your Dell comes with a 300 watt Power Supply, you will want to check that out before you purchase a new video card. If you need to upgrade your Power Supply AND Video Card - here is a sub $100 solution that will do well with GW and more too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153028

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102820

note that the Power Supply listed there does not have any PCI-e 6 Pin connectors, but the 4670 does not need or use them as it draws all of it's power through the motherboard. (if you ever need a 6 Pin connector in the future you can get a 2 Molex to 1 6Pin adapter which would work with your Power Supply, for about $10)

Total price would be about $95 after rebates, and you would have a nice Power Supply with room for small future additions if you wish, and a quality Vidoe Card which will handle GW with ease and play most modern games at decent settings and medium resolutions.

rick1027

rick1027

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

W/R

id say your better off getting both powersuplly and video card that 300 watt psu wont have the get go to run more then you got already. id look into the 450w to 500w range for psu. elders choices arent bad for the price so id probabaly go with them

Blackhearted

Blackhearted

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2007

Ohio, usa

none

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by moriz View Post
something along the line of the geforce 9500GT should be sufficient for GW. alternatively, you can go with a radeon HD4670. the later is more expensive, but about twice as powerful. both can be found for below $100 USD.
Not quite. I'd say it's more around 1.5x faster or maybe a little more. But it's definitely not 2x faster than a 9500/8600. And when it comes to GW, both will perform about the same as gw is more cpu limited on todays hardware than gpu limited.

Elder III

Elder III

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jan 2007

Ohio

I Will Never Join Your Guild (NTY)

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackhearted View Post
Not quite. I'd say it's more around 1.5x faster or maybe a little more. But it's definitely not 2x faster than a 9500/8600. And when it comes to GW, both will perform about the same as gw is more cpu limited on todays hardware than gpu limited.
hd4670 scores more than 2x higher on 3DMarkVantage compared to the 9500GT

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/9350/40/1/1/

It also whomps the the 9500GT by double or close to it in most modern games if the resolution and settings are on medium or higher.

iHax

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Jun 2009

I picked up a card with an nVidia chipset (Sparkle) 1GB 9400 card for under $100