what graphics card..?

krashovr10ad

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Hi - just looking for some advice. I need to upgrade my graphics card so that I can play some games that I've just bought - I thought my current graphics card could cope with them but sadly not.

The minimum spec listed for the games are: nVidia GeForce 3 or ATI Radeon 8500 or equivalent with 64 MB of Video RAM

But to be honest - I don't know where to start... I'd like to go higher than the minimum spec but I don't want to be spending a fortune...

If anyone can offer advice - item names and prices that would be a great help...

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MercilessKiller

First of all how much is a fortune?

You can get decent mid range graphics cards for around the £60 mark I suppose.. maybe even less..

Checkout the 6600 LE.. thats quite a nice budget card which is above those specs!

You also need to know if your motherboard can cope with AGP 128 and stuff like that depending how old it is. Also what processor do you have? No point having a good gfx with a rubbish processor!

krashovr10ad

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ok - i'll check out my system specs when i get home and post again later...

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Omertron

This article over at Tom's Hardware should guide you down the route of what you are after:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/11/07/the_best_video_cards_for_your_money_uk/

krashovr10ad

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Hi - I've just checked and my processor is AMD Athlon(XP) 2500+

I'm only a bit green about the stuff that's actually inside my PC...

I've been informed that my motherboard is an Abit KV7 - does that mean anything to anyone..? my pc is about 3 years old

Can anyone offer some advice..? Thanx in advance

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other

I'll try to help...

according to this:
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=125

your motherboard takes AGP 8x video cards, so you need to buy an AGP card, rather than a PCI-Express card.

so this is the page to look at from the above link:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/11/07/the_best_video_cards_for_your_money_uk/page4.html

you can try to look in https://www.pcpro.co.uk and https://www.custompc.co.uk and find some graphics card "labs" (reviews of lots of them together) and see if you can get anywhere. I think you can find a good card suitable for you for under £120.

What game is it?

krashovr10ad

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The games are the expansion packs - Winter Assault and Dark Crusade - for the Warhammer 40K game Dawn of War by THQ

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MercilessKiller

any card with 128mb DDR2 would do you the job I would imagine

Go for an Nvidia mid range card.. if you can find one for 256mb DDR3 then go for that one but its whatever you can afford

CAT-THE-FIFTH

It depends on what you want to spend!! I would also check how much RAM you have got.If you do not know just go to My Computer and right click on properties.

What is your current graphics card though??

I would reccommend at least 1gb of RAM for most games. You can get a Nvidia 7600GS AGP card which should suffice for most things for around 80 pounds online. An Nvidia 7600GT AGP is even better but cost around 120-140 pounds online.

ATI also make the X1650 pro AGP which costs around 90 quid online.

There are deals to be had on secondhand cards of the previous generation like the Nvidia 6800,6800GS,6800GT and 6800 Ultra but these consume more power and produce more heat. They will do fine also.

krashovr10ad

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The spec on my PC:

Computer: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 1.85GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM
System: Windows Professional Version 2002 SP2
Graphics card: Radeon 7000 Series
Motherboard: ABIT KV7

To be honest I've not to the money to £100-ish on a graphics card - what with Christmas coming up and stuff...

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CAT-THE-FIFTH

If you want to spend much less a Nvidia 6200 AGP 128mb costs only around 30 quid and will play games like Unreal Tournament 2004,Farcry and Halo reasonably well.

An example of one is here:

http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=13_66&products_id=434&osCsid=b729fe045d9efccb11e651b7289566b6

Some reviews are here:

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/inno3d_geforce_6200a/index.shtml

http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/video/GigaByte/n62128de/index.htm

Some of the cards can also be unlocked to a 6600 card since basically the 6200 is an artificially cutdown 6600 card.There is more info here:

http://www.doomedpc.com/?q=node/36

A Nvidia 7300GT 256mb DDR2 will cost around 60 to 70 quid and is better than a 6200 series card.

On the ATI front the X1300 Pro 256mb AGP can be had for similiar prices to the 7300GT AGP and is also pretty decent for the price too!