Good , cheap, Video Card

I'm looking into upgrading my video card for my desktop and was wondering what you guys consider to be a good card, for not a lot of cash. The only stipulation is that it has to be a PCI card as that is all my board has (stupid HP board)

I have done some looking and found an ATI Radeon 9250 w/256mb for $99. Not sure if that is good or not, but it's better than my integrated intel at the moment

a little unclear? your VGA slot, is it the old PCI? if it is then u cant get new VGA cards & it will not run too well. Do u mean PCIX or PCIE (PCI Express)? if u do then most cards will do the job. look for things like how many pipelines and pixel shading (the more the better)

6600GT is the best value card out there right now.

Will play any game released right now quite well and you shoul dbe able to get it for around 100$

As a side note, 9800pro 128mb are around 100$, and those are amasing cards, but they are basicly heaters...

-Fal

EDIT: make sure you have an AGP slot, or else you should buy a new mother board before a video card. Depending on your chipset the new ATI motherboards have reasonably good integrated video. Check em out.

I think you are saying that all you have are PCI slots on your motherboard. If that is the case, your best upgrade would be a new motherboard and just about any 8x AGP video card.

AGP is 2x faster than PCI, so no matter how good of a video card you get (I don't think there are many good PCI cards out there) it will be forced to be half as slow as a very basic AGP card.

While you are looking for a MoBo, make sure t works with the equipment you have and accepts AGP 8x. Some only accept 4x, and that is ok, but there is no reason to buy a new MoBo that halves the speed of your new shiny video card.

He has a Dell Dimension 3000. We have already determined that th system only has PCI. Honestly, no matter what PCI card you get, performance isn't going to be the greatest. And a simple motherboard upgrade is as simple as it may seem. Dell uses there own type case/mobo package. Not to mention they may still use there own type of power supply. To do a motherboard/graphics card upgrade, he is proably looking at $300-$400.

As to which card to get, I love ATI cards. You can never go wrong with ATI.

The 9250 isn't too hot either. I would strongly suggest you go onto newegg and start building a computer, that way you can have stuff like dual dual core opterons with dual 7800s and 2 gigs of ram.

If only money was that easy to come by.

I use Geforce 7800 GTx *shrug*

OK, well Dell does use their own case/MoBo package, but you will probably find the power supply pretty top notch ad compatiable with your new ATX case.

Why do people keep telling others to build computers? He didn't ask that question...he asked what vid card is the best for his Dim 3000.

Granted there are not many choices...however still a PCI vid card is better then the on board video. I would look at Nvidia's FX 5XXX series and the ATI 9250. Not a whole lot of difference between he two. It will speed you up some. Guild Wars will play ok with them. That with 1gb of ram and you are set....as much as you can be with a business machine.

I have to agree with you Old Dood. I don't understand why people don't READ what is before them.

And for buddy with the Geforce 7800, good for you! He didn't ask you what video card you had, but thanks for stopping by.

If he wanted advice on building a new PC, he'd ask for advice on a new PC. Maybe he can't afford it. Maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe GW is the only game he plays. You don't need dual core, SLI enabled systems to play this game folks.

At any rate, I *HAVE* played GW with a Radeon 9250 PCI and it's not bad. It will certainly be better than your integrated graphics, far better in fact.

What you'll find is that you may need to run at a lower resolution due to the limited memory architecture of the Radeon 9250 (and the type of bus it's connected to - PCI). 800x600 with some graphic effects will probably be the best you can do. Of course, this is MY preference, you may be happy with higher resolutions, etc.

I like the Radeon 9250. Try and get a passively cooled one, then there are no fans to worry about.

Hope it works out for you!

considering that it probably has integrated graplics putting in a bottom end PCI card will give a dramatic increase in quality at the same time freeing up the system ram that was being used for video.

as for the gig of ram skip it for now as none of us know (or cared to ask) what your budget was.

those power supplies are marginal in some cases si i would STRONGLY suggest checking with the company to see if the small additional load on the power supply would be chancy.

probably not as that card you mentioned is not a power hog

my 6600 128MB AGP 8X was cheap a few months ago 100$ , but its not GT and its not 256 .. i run guildwars with all at max , Antielising 4x ... very happy with it.

my powersuply was 300W i had to change it to a becose the grafics card requires 350W
also my mobo was only 4X AGP so after one month or so i change it also to a 8X AGP... in the end wasnt that cheap .. but it was cheaper then a new computer for sure.

Once again...this person is looking for a regular PCI vid card...AGP are not available on a Dimension 3000.

hi dood

did you know that they lowered the new york regentd diploma qualifying level to 27 per cent to get your diploma?

out future leadership is coming from schools like that

this is on the math A part of the exam which is multiple guess and has some of the hardest questions.

necessary equipment is calculator and other items.

one question i lived was about acute angles and of the 4 choices one was an obtuse angle of 135 degrees and the other was a right angle of 90 degrees.

one of the remaining 2 guesses was so obvious it was impossible to miss.

i took the first 10 questions and answered them in my head missing this one

3 exclamation point divided by 7 exclamation point equals what?

i never had an exclamation point in math when i grew up.

did you?

No...I didn't. 27%?? What is THAT? You mean to tell me that is all you need to pass?

Then it is the End of Days....

New York Post Online Edition: news
When it comes to grading the Math A Regents exam. ... Students who sat for the
exam on Thursday needed just 23 out of 84 points — or about 27 percent

im scared

lol, that is scary, but to be expected.

Actually I never said that it was a Dell system if you look at the original post. It is however an HP a1020n which is probably in the same boat as the Dell as far as the MoBo. If I had the funds to build my own system I would be more than happy to, however I don't feel like spending that kind of cash right now when I'm only gaming about 4-8 hrs a week (if that). GW is also the only game I'm playing at the moment. I may play something else from time to time (like MoHAA or COD2) but GW is my main game. At the moment I know that the integrated video is going to be killing my system and while I can run the game, it bogs down. I would love to be able to go with an AGP or PCIe/x but *shrugs* gotta work with what I've got. I may have the funds to drop in some more RAM, but would like to start with the gfx card for starters and build from there. Thanks for all the tips and advice!

My mistake on the Dell. I got you mixed up with someone else. Sorry. You all "look" alike. Same principle applies. Those systems are not very friendly to swapping out mother boards. I am sure you can do it to some degree...sometimes it is not worth the effort.

Still adding a cheaper regular PCI card will help you out allot more then just using your on board video. Later on when you have the cash to purchase a system...then you will know what questions to ask before buying.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me visit these forums less often, as they have occasionally been getting on my nerves...

Half of the responses people give are bad advice based on speculation (and bad speculation at that) and people's thinly-veiled boasts about the top-notch hardware they (or mommy and daddy) bought.

I'm not trying to be mean here, but folks, most people are just trying to get the game to run well on the hardware they have with as little effort as possible. Now, at some point upgrades might warrant a MB/CPU upgrade, but many people (people who aren't saavy kids or technically experienced adults) would rather just buy a new computer when it comes time than invest the time and effort into a rebuild of their PC.

Don't tell people to go out and spend a bunch of cash on something or undertake something difficult or hazardous to their hardware unless you really know what you're talking about.

When people are having problems, they probably don't want to spend a bunch of money, spend a lot of time, endure a lot of aggravation, or hear about how great YOUR system is. They just want someone that knows what they are talking about to give them some advice. It's nice that you're enthusiastic about helping people, but shot-in-the-dark guesses that can cost money and cause problems aren't helping.

/rant....sorry about that...