Choosing A new graphics card and Monitor

Basically im on a budget so prob dont want to spend more then £100

ATM i have a ATI Radeon 9100 on-board graphics card, but i want a dual monitor setup (was this close to buying one today then thought i better check first my comp can take 2 lol)

basically i want something at least a bit better then what i have because if im gonna be spending money on replacing a component i may aswell make the money go to increasing my comps abilities.. I dont play that money games on my comp atm prefer console games so GW is the only one at the mo, but its prob best to be future ready especially if im still into GW when Ch. 3 comes out - who knows they may make a card i buy today feel outdated when i play.

Also if anyone could give me tips on what to look for, for a decent monitor specs, so far ive seen 17" TFT's with a max res of 1280 x 1000 and a response time of 8ms for about £110 is this good or are there more specs i should be looking for?

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

LG L1750SQ 17" with 8ms is around 70 pounds. If you want a dual monitor setup thats cheap I suggest you purchase a cheap TV with S-video input (serious) and buy a standard Geforce graphics card with TV output then hook the monitor to the monitor port and the TV to the TV output port and voila. Dual monitor video cards usually cost a lot and have pitiful performance.

would prefer not to no space on my desk for a TV lol (also ive got one monitor already jus want a second one).. ive seen some dual monitor cards for £30 or so but as im kno basically nothin about graphics card i dont really have the knowledge to compare them bar seeing what numbers are higher but that still feels like an uninformed decision cos i dont really understand how the different specs affect performance..

these are the ones i was sent by a friend:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...9&GroupID=1263

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...6&GroupID=1226

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...5&GroupID=1263

Just about every card made in the past 2 years or so has either 1 vga and 1 dvi, or dual dvi. The old ones weren't cheap at the time, but they are now. Going with dual monitors while gaming will give you bad performance if you're using a cheap card though. I always switch to single when i'm gaming. Fine for 2d work though. It's nice to browse in one window and type in another.

Dont get the 9250, only supports dx8 (i'm pretty sure)

Dont get the fx 5500

Get the 6200, it's the newest card out of those.

I'm going to go out, buy chicken, prepare supper, and then I will deal with all the misinformation in this thread.

Get the 6200. They played very well in games in my own personal experience.

i wait on this with breathless anticipation

Eeeek the 6200 is already going obsolete and won't run any of the new games that are coming out like Elder Scrolls Oblivion. I'd recommend a Geforce 6600GT with TV out and an LCD monitor WITH S-Video in support so that you can trick your graphics card into thinking that the monitor is a spare TV thus getting both good performance and dual monitors.

TV out is crap. Period.

Adding a second VGA or a DVI does NOT NOT NOT reduce the quality of the card, it raises it. Otherwise why would EVERY high end card have dual output?

If your budget is 100 pounds (American keyboards don't have that sign) I would look on a couple of respected UK sites for a VIDEO CARD ALONE as that will make more of a difference as to whether or not GW will run for you in the future.

A recent patch has brought GW's rendering fully onto the DX9 API and so a true DX 9 card will do the best. The 6200 is the only one of those DX9 capable, and will run it with all options on including postprocessing. I know, I did it.

Let me see if I can make a recommendation of a card and you can locate one. As I don't know UK sites too well, being an American git, I'll have to do an on-the-fly exchange and hope I get close.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102680

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121195

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814140067

All three of those should exchange out to close to 100. They are all much more powerful cards than what you were looking at. Dual monitors does not help GW and unless you're doing a lot of spreadsheets or graphic design there's really no reason to use them.

Sheesh, what a way to start your day...

thanx ill take a look of those links..

yea i dont want dual monitors for GW but with my uni course (games computing) and trying to learn graphics design and programming in my spare time it would be a help.. plus i jus want 2 screens lol

think the 6800 is a bit over my budget atm, so im thinkin of getting the Geforce 6600 GT seems like quite a good card from the reviews ive read ill jus have to get a dvi - vga convertor for the monitor ive got now. Plus its costs £97 on one site i saw so shouldnt push the cost of everything too much over £200.

Toms Hardware is a well respected computer hardware info site. Tons of great Info can be found. Here is a ling with more info on the 6600gt card, which I also agree is by far the best BANG for you pounds

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/04/...iddling_price/

Yup, all of nVidia's 6xxx gen cards and beyond support DX9 Rendering, however on ATI it is x8xx i think? or maybe x1xxx, One of them is Shadermodel 3.0 lol.

I recently picked up a 6200TC for just 70$, not sure of pounds to $ conversion rate.

Most cards come with a dvi-vga converter, sometimes 2.

The ATI X1600 and up have the shadermodel 3.0, the x800 and x850 do not. I recently purchased the x850xt and it runs GW very well but doesnt have the shadermodel. If I would have known what I know now I would have went with the x1600 or higher in order to have the sm 3.0. Seems like a lot of future games will support this, like the new game Crysis.