What graphic card to go for?

w123kid

i have recently bought a 22 inch wide screen and i am not sure my on board card can cope with it

Now the screen is not HD or DVI so i am looking to update to something not high tech but still able to run near recent games.

On borad card is a Radeox 1100, i am not really willing to spend £ 100, half that price i would consider

whta should i look out for? ddr3? divx 10 support?

[Deleted User]

Which screen did you buy?

Does your motherboard have an AGP slot or is it PCI-Express?

What do you use your computer for?

w123kid

Sorry
well its a HP screen and i have a pcie sloton my pc

mostly media viewing but i dont mind the odd try out at some games every now and again

TechTerry

Do you know if your old graphics card has a power connector as many of the new cards require its own power source.

EDIT: What kind of games? New games or older games? Also how old is the computer, I have had a problem once that the power supply was not powerful enough to have the new card. Are you running vista or XP?

dagger_meerkat

How old is your pc? Does your PSU have a 6 pin connector and what's its wattage? If it doesn't have a connector, then your best bet is a is 8600gt .. although you can get molex to 6-pin converters .. but then again any high end video cards should have an adequate power supply, hence the psu question.

TechTerry

You may also find that most of them have DVI ports, you can use a DVI to VGA converter which normally comes free with the graphics card.

[Deleted User]

dagger_meerkat wrote: »

How old is your pc? Does your PSU have a 6 pin connector and what's its wattage? If it doesn't have a connector, then your best bet is a is 8600gt .. although you can get molex to 6-pin converters .. but then again any high end video cards should have an adequate power supply, hence the psu question.

The 8600GT is about the only card that will fit the budget, so that'd get my vote too!

w123kid

TechTerry wrote: »

Do you know if your old graphics card has a power connector as many of the new cards require its own power source.

EDIT: What kind of games? New games or older games? Also how old is the computer, I have had a problem once that the power supply was not powerful enough to have the new card. Are you running vista or XP?

PC is also an HP only few months old
Specs for both:
HP DX2250 - ATHLON 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB,
HP L2208W 22" TFT Monitor 1680 x 1050 300 cd/m2 1000:1 5 ms 16:9 VGA

i would like to play recent games,

current graphic is on board but i do have spare power connectors for graphic card on the PSU (not sure wat wattage it is mind u) prob 300W

Thanks Techie

mrak

It should be mentioned that many graphically-intensive games will be playable with some of the advanced features switched off (e.g. background effects and anti-aliasing). Might be best to try out a few demos for the games in question and see what the current performance is like before splashing out on a new card.

Mrak

w123kid

ok u suggest a 8600gt

there is many types from 256 to 1gb
different makes
can anyone suggest a site with good reviews that explains the differents specs?

dagger_meerkat

This is what you should be looking at:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126974

Don't bother with the 512mb and 1gb versions, these high memories only shine if you have high end cards.

Your PSU is 300W, you are only going to get away with a 8600gt.

I have to warn you beforehand that this card will not handle 1680*1050 resolutions if you have all graphics options set at high. If you want to max out your resolution, I would have advised you to dish out on a 8800gt which are coming down in price nicely. However, with that PSU .. you would have plenty of stability problems with the 8800gt.

You are going to have stick with the 8600gt, and probably play at a lower resolution one level below for good frame rates.