Decent cheapish graphics card?

rev_henry

Hi, I currently have a peak radeon x550 graphics card, which I find is pretty abysmal.
I'm after something reasonably cheap, £50 tops I'd say, unless it was something amazing, that will play most reasonably new games reasonably well.
I have an athlon 64 3500 processor with 1gb DDR2 ram, that won't be what's holding me back will it? Or would I be better advised to upgrade something else instead of the graphics?

Thanks

thomas01155

pci,agp or pci-e?

rev_henry

Sorry, completely forgot, pci-express, x16.

Conor_3

Get yourself onto Ebay and find a 7800GT. It's an old card but a good match for your CPU and will have no trouble with virtually any game as it's a DirectX9 card, not a DirectX10 one and its the DX10 stuff which really hammers them.

rev_henry

Thanks for that Conor, just what I wanted someone to say! So am I right in thinking that the latest games will still run on DX9?
Thanks again.

fox2319

rev_henry wrote: »

Thanks for that Conor, just what I wanted someone to say! So am I right in thinking that the latest games will still run on DX9?
Thanks again.

Yup. At the moment, only vista runs dx10 and unless you want to play shadowrun or halo2 on your PC, you can stick to dx9 without any hassles.

rev_henry

Ok, thanks. Well I don't have vista and I have halo2 for my xbox so thats not a problem.
Conor, or anyone else for that matter, are there any other models that you could suggest, in case I can't find a decent one?

Conor_3

OH MY GOD. Just looked at what they're fetching on Ebay or what they're not fetching more like.

One ending in an hour and its not even £20. There's half a dozen under a tenner with no bids and 2 BINS for £50.

Search for 7800GT (no spaces) in Ebay.

Just to give you an idea of performance, mine runs Battlefield 2 at 1440x900 with all detail ramped up to full at over 100FPS, likewise HalfLife 2/Counterstrike:Source/Team Fortress 2, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory.

niceguyrichy

you can get an 8600GT for around 50 quid in a proper shop with warranty these days, if you're nervy about trusting ebay. it'll play everything happily for you.

BillScarab

Another alternative would be the Radeon X1950 Pro, you may be able to get one for around your budget on ebay. It was considered one of the best DX9 cards in it's day.

[Deleted User]

BillScarab wrote: »

Another alternative would be the Radeon X1950 Pro, you may be able to get one for around your budget on ebay. It was considered one of the best DX9 cards in it's day.

True, I built a system with one that could run Crysis in medium and most games well. It was about a year ago, so a few of the titles now might be a bit poor running, but it was a cracking card.