New Monitor + GFX card

Jarlawuk

Been looking for one for a while now and this seems fairly reasonable

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/STCS7/3-/1094000/HannsG_19_Widescreen_TFT_Monitor/Product.html

Basically widescreen 19in for just £159.99 (free p&p - play.com), but I'm not very good with the tech side of things - can anyone tell me if this is a decent spec/brand for a monitor? Thanks

Also I recently bought a Dell 5150 pc with
Pentium 4 3.40ghz processor
1024 ram
250gb hard disk
ATI x600 256mb gfx card.

The system doesnt seem to handle the lastest games that well on anything higher than 800x600 resolution so I'm looking to upgrade the gfx card for something better - around £200 - any decent recommendations. Want to upgrade the ram as well but I've been told I have to buy matching pairs and 2gb would cost £200+ which is a bit much...

viru.doshi

Monitor seems ok, never come across the brand though.

Does the motherboard have an AGP or a PCI-E interface on the motherboard for the graphics card?

fguk

I am not a GFX card expert but perhaps I can help by telling you that the 5150 has a single PCI Express x16 slot.

To the OP, that monitor looks good, especially at that price, and the HannsG make is now being sold in a lot of online retailers.

Little_John

Limiting yourself to £200 is a small problem as your stuck at the bottom end of the nvidia 9700GT range of cards with around 400Mhz clock speeds to get the better 550mhz you need to spend another £45 maybe a bit more. Is it worth it? I wouldnt know but I would rather spend the money once and not find out Im still only playing at lower resolutions or when I do go higher I am dropping other settings due to stutering.

The ATI range you should be looking at the x1800 or ex800 or ex850 you may get a better card in an 850 than the newr x1800 and save a few £££'s

Recomend a card no chance, buying a graphics card is a pain, so many makes, and diferent memory amounts speeds and diferent GPU speeds normally I would go for the most of everything but they cost alot more than £200 so you need to compromise and make that desision on your own.

The monitor seems of the specs are standard for a 19" widescreen panel and the price is great the nearest price I can find is a Hyundai at about £165 from aria.co.uk. The make from play is unknown

Jarlawuk

I don't really mind spending more on my gfx card to be honest - I was quite happy to spend £300 so long as it last for a reasonable amount of time, was advised that £200 could get a decent one that was all. So would I be better off getting a nvidia or ati?

Samba_Pa_Ti

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_This_Week_Only_25.html#aMO_2d017_2dOK

same/similar monitor.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_This_Week_Only_25.html#aGX_2d044_2dCO

graphics card that is on offer there too

CAT-THE-FIFTH

Hi

I would be a bit careful about spending too much on the graphics card considering that DirectX10 is coming out next year and more IMPORTANTLY virtually all the graphics cards today due not have proper HDCP capabilities.The same goes for the monitors!

CAT-THE-FIFTH

The 7600GT,7900GT and X1800GTO are good value cards to consider.They are also single slot cards unlike the higher models!

Jarlawuk

Thx for the suggestions the monitor and gfx card look like very good value - will be ordering them and getting rid of that x600 card which is no good

CAT-THE-FIFTH

Do not get the X800 series as they lack support for Shader Model 3.0 which means that they will not be able to produce some of the nicer graphical effects that this brings to modern games. The X1000 series onwards supports this for ATI graphics cards and the Nvidia 6000 and 7000 series.The X1600 series is a bit weak however;the 7600GT and the X1800GTO are the best cheaper graphics cards.