Video card question - "Now for something completely different"

Ah I know there are a ton of video card threads out here, but frankly reading them all has left me more confused.

I know a decent amount about computers (I'm 23 and my father started me on computers at 2, but I'm a finance guy not and IT guy...totally wiggs me out reading these forums where 10 year olds are building computers wow). I am trying to help my friend find a better video card for her computer. I haven't bought a computer or video card in over a year so what I have is a GeForce FX 5200 which has 128MB memory. My friend's comp is about two years old, she mainly uses it for word processing and basic internet stuff (email, bill pay, whatnot). It has an integrated 64 MB video card, so not very hot. She is not a heavy gamer obviously. But, I have been trying to get her into Guild Wars and other games such as Sims 2 (make a gamer out of her, heheh). She seems to have some interest in Guild Wars once she gets past the barrier of of the controls (as I said she doesn't game). So I know she would need a new video card.

So since I know she doesn't need top of the line type of card my immeadiate search have been something along the lines of:
<$100
128 MB card

Note: read this as she is not hardcore, nor ever will be. Someone who wants to mildly take part in my hobbies.

This leaves me with, oh you know, only 200 cards . Anyone have some thoughts to help me narrow this down. I know I still need to open her comp and figure out if it is AGP or PCI. It is an HP Pavillion, so I dont know if they have a standard of either AGP or PCI. But, I haven't had a chance to open it up as of yet.

Edit: My understanding is that it is a PCI slot.

Head to Best Buy or check out newegg.com as they seem to have the best price or at least close the best prices on line. They have a several cards under 100 bucks. In fact they may even have a couple 256 MB ones for around 100 bucks. What model number of HP Pavillion? So far at the age of 2 years (the machine that is), I have yet to open an HP that didn't have an AGP slot but then again who knows. Personally I prefer Radeon's but hey thats me.

One other thing I would look at is RAM. If she is at 256 MB, no matter how nice of a card you get her, her machine is going to run slow, especially if she is running XP. I aim for 512 MB. RAM isn't too awfully bad in price either though it could run you anywhere from 60 on up. I'd check out crucial(spelling??).com

One thing to keep in mind when ordering online and comparing to brick and mortar is the shipping costs.

http://www.newegg.com/

has a sterling reputation for integrity good prices and rock bottom shipping rates

for the video card put into the search (at newegg) the price limit and pci or agp and narrow down your choices

name brand ram is going for about 50 dollars for 512 megabytes
dont even think of adding less than a 512 stick unless the pc will only accept 256mb pieces

name brand is only a bit more expensive than generic and you have known good quality

This is where I looked and got 200 cards in my search result

Edit: Ah now 22, now that I know its PCI

I am not concerned about RAM for her at the moment, just looking for video card.

very well
i simply wanted to establish that the recommended is 512 mb according to the site especially if using win xp

on the card one thing to check is that the card has a 128 bit buss meaning no suffixes of SE/LE/LS which should help narrow it down

another thing is direct x 9 COMPLIANCE (fully supports it) and not COMPATABLE (which only means it will work with it but not give the special effects)

i took a quick look and came up with this as a possibility in the price range mentioned

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...87#DetailSpecs

fairly respected company and several people who have the same model are happy with it

just an idea not a personal recommendation working within the specified limits

it will provide a great improvement over the existing setup

edit

it will also free up 64 mb of memory now being used for graphics duties as well

If it's PCI only, then a PCI FX5200 should run you about $60 and would work fine.

you dont usually get 256 mb and 128 bit buss for 60 dollars

also mine was still within the price range including shipping

www.pricewatch.com

you forgot to add this which is necessary

http://www.resellerratings.com/

check out who you are dealing with

i have found newegg close to lowest price and top in every respect

www.ebuyer.com - Even better.

I dont think its better than Newegg. Newegg has all the best parts, the most selection, and has OEM and Retail parts for less.

Additional:

Ok now I have decided I need a new video card. I have simply been having too many problems playing Guild Wars on my Nvidia Geforce 5200 FX. See link:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=14478

GW Tech support and I spent over three weeks emailing back and forth before they simply just said put in a new video card. Now this sucks because my card can handle many heavy graphics based games, this is the only one that decides it doesn't like my card. However, as I seem to be playing this one a lot it has become and overwelming problem.

So my question is in regards to the slot. I am not so much a hardware person, but I know I have an AGP slot not a PCI slot. But what I do not understand is the 2x/4x/8x stuff. Does that also have to do with the slot? How would I know if I wanted a 4x card or a 8x card? I know that in trying to solve the above problem GW Tech said to go into my bios and turn down my AGP however my bios didnt have a line item for that. So end result:
/me confused.

if any can explain why that would help please do so, never heard of that before!

i would guess you've got at least 4x. i've heard/read recently that most games don't even optimize for 8x even if you had it... ? (but i could be incredibly wrong too..)

ehhh...sometimes and I stress sometimes...a card that only utilizes 4x AGP can get a buffer overflow when being run at a max 8X...though i've never heard of it happening to anyone. There really is no difference between 4x and 8x AGP...I, personally, think it was a marketing tool to sell new motherboards. It's like having a car that does 80 mph max..but the speed limit is 74mph...8x AGP would be like having a 175mph speed limit...the car can still only do 80mph...(if that makes any sense). The performance increase from 4x to 8x isn't noticeable. So if your board only has a 4x AGP slot don't go replacing it so you can have that 8x AGP card.

as far as telling what speed your AGP slot is...it shouldn't really matter as long as the card is capable fo running on both 1.5v and .8v. Most 4x cards will run in 8x AGP interfaces...and ALL 8x cards CAN run in 4x AGP interfaces.

ok so 4x and 8x AGP does refer to something in the slot. Ok so how do I know what my current motherboard can hold so as to get a compatable video card?

In your BIOS there should be an option for what speed you want to run your AGP at...the max speed in that list will be the max speed of your AGP Interface. Either that or you could tell me what computer brand/model you have OR what BIOS Version you are running(this will only limit it...but generally all motherboards running a specific BIOS are using the AGP interface)

See this is also what GW Tech told me, but there is no line in my Bios that mentions AGP. Only even graphics line mentioned is internal graphics interface, but with a video card that isn't soldered into the mother board I never did understand that one.

Brand Dimension 4600
Bios version A12

8X AGP....you need to do a BIOS Flash A12 is outdated.

I just did a bios flash like a month ago good greif.

Ok so I need to pick up a AGP 8x card. So is there a line in the bios I missed or something where you pulled that from?

The new card would prolly a 256 since apparnetly 128 from a Geforce 5200 fx wont run on a game that recomends 64...

Anyone know if there are any plans to actually adress the 5000 series issues?

Thanks for you help too I appreciate this.

nah I just looked up the specs on that machine...

I doubt they'll be adressing the issues in the 5000 series cards. They're years outdated. They introduced the 7000 series recently....plus you could grab a nice 6000 series 6200 for around 135-ish...which isn't a bad price for a very good card.

you really only need a 128 to run this game. it's not the memory size that's causing the problems you are having...it's the GPU and memory Clocks of the 5000 series cards.

Most of the 5200FX cards run a GPU Clock in the 250mhz range and a memory clock in the 400mhz range. The 6000 Series(atleast the 6200 runs a GPU clock in the 350mhz range and a Memory clock in the 500mhz range....

it's not so much about the available memory it's the clock speeds you need to look for. 256mb of Video Ram is useless if the clock speed on the memory is 250mhz...I have a BFG 6600GT OC(only 128mb) I can run GW at 1600x1200 with Anti-Aliasing at 4x and visual quality turned all the way up. and it's because I have a 525mhz GPU Core Clock speed an 1050mhz Memory Clock Speed.


Brand BFG Tech
Model BFGR6600GT
Chipset
GPU Geforce 6600GT
Core clock 525MHz
PixelPipelines 8
Memory
Memory Clock 1050MHz
Memory Size 128MB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR3
3D API
RAMDAC 400mhz

those are the specs on my card...I bolded the important stuff...that's what you want to look at. clock speeds are more important than memory size.