Choosing a suitable Graphics Card 1

[Sitehelp]

Hello all! ok not sure if I am in the correct forum for this but I currently have a Voodoo 4 graphics card, not the best I know, I want to upgrade but I am VERY limited with money so aroung £60 is about right for me if not slightly cheaper!!!! My current graphics card has buffer errors etc when I try to run games and it is slightly jerky on playback of videos in WinXP. Anyone reccomend a graphics card that will be best for the latest games and for video playback that is around my budget. The reason I ask is that I went to a shop today and was recommended the sparkle GF FX5600 128Mb DDR AGP DVI TV-Out Retail at 72.85 and I wasnt quite sure whether he was being honest or not so I left it. I dont know much about graphics cards!
Cheers for the help all!

 

[Sitehelp]

Oh yeah and do I need to upgrade my motherboard or will I be able to use these graphics cards???? If u need to know the spec whats the best way to get the motherboard details!

 

[cdogg]

Yes, we'll need to know the specs of your motherboard to tell you for sure.

£60 = 112.50

Now items in the UK are often slightly more expensive than they are here in the US. However, I would suspect that you could buy a decent DirectX 8 card (like the GeForce4 Ti4200) easily with that amount of money. The Ti4200 has been out for a while, but is still one of the best overall DirectX7 and DirectX8 cards available. Although many of the latest games demand DirectX9-compatible cards, they will still run on your Ti4200 only at slightly less detail (i.e. water ripples/reflections might animate differently).

If you must have DirectX 9, many have given good reviews on both the ATI Radeon 9600 XT and the GeForceFX 5900 XT version (not the Ultra which is much more expensive). The Radeon 9600 XT is a little less expensive, but both will probably run you as high as £130-£150 if you can afford it.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Sitehelp]

thanks, whats the best way to get my motherboard details without opening the case?

 

[cdogg]

Search for one or both of these tools:

Belarc Advisor
Aida32

I know Belarc is available as a free download at Download.com, which scans your complete hardware configuration and outputs it to a browser window.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Sitehelp]

Excellent that Belarc Advisor is not bad! ok I presume the bit you need to know is the Main Circuit Board bit, it reads as follows:

Board: 8363-686A
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 10/24/2001

This is what is running my Voodoo 4 at present, is this enough for upgrading to a reasonable graphics card recommended previously?

 

[cdogg]

I forgot that although Belarc is a very informative tool, it does not directly report anything about your AGP bus speed.

However, other diagnostic apps like Sisoft Sandra do. Here's a link to someone's report who has the same board as you:
[URL unfurl="true"]http://home.earthlink.net/~starrise/mysystem.html[/url]

It appears that your AGP slot is version 2.0 at 4x speed. This means that you should be able to run any current AGP 4x or 8x card on the market. In other words, any of those cards suggested above should work fine. Keep in mind that other slower components (like your CPU, RAM or hard drive) are likely to bottleneck the video card.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[paparazi]

As long as you have a 4X AGP slot? then at that price point I would recommend the older but still very capable
Radeon 9500.
I saw some advertised (ATI OEM straight 9500's) on ebay UK yesterday at £60.00 "buy it now" price.
If you can stretch to £70.00 then they have the 9500PRO OEM also "buy in now" for £70 dead.
The 9500Pro is regarded as something of a landmark card equal and better in some ways to the 9600Pro that replaced it.
Certainly better than the FX5600 quoted.
And dare I say it? soft upgradeable to 9700Pro specs (but be careful)
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.