video card upgrade???
#1
05-26-06, 02:31 PM
video card upgrade???
With so many different video cards on the market today, I don't know what card to upgrade to. This is for my son's computer and he wants to play Far Cry and other "high end" games. He currently has a P4 2.6 Ghz with 768 DDR memory and a 80 GB hard drive. He needs a video card that supports AGP with Hardware T & L. I don't want to break the bank so I looking to spend between $50 and $100 if possible or the best card for that much. Thank you.
#3
05-26-06, 03:23 PM
Although I dont play videogames much I wanted to benchmark a new PC lease that was given to me by the company. So I bought FarCry to do it. This game mostly relies on the videocard for its performace as CPU cannot do much for the DDR (video) memory transfers and triange processing.
Unfortunately the $300 videocard by ATI with 128MB onboard video RAM did not cut it at all. It was dragging way slow and the video settings had to be set to lowest.
I do have two CPU's running at 3.5 Ghz and 4GB of RAM.
To run games like FarCry you will have to fork out about $400 for the newest ATI card (you may find it cheaper on ebay). But I guess you will need to spend at leat $300 or so for the ATI's X1800 (the minimum for FarCry).
I see that this card retails for avarage of $330 online.
Hope this helps.
Unfortunately the $300 videocard by ATI with 128MB onboard video RAM did not cut it at all. It was dragging way slow and the video settings had to be set to lowest.
I do have two CPU's running at 3.5 Ghz and 4GB of RAM.
To run games like FarCry you will have to fork out about $400 for the newest ATI card (you may find it cheaper on ebay). But I guess you will need to spend at leat $300 or so for the ATI's X1800 (the minimum for FarCry).
I see that this card retails for avarage of $330 online.
Hope this helps.
#4
05-30-06, 05:55 PM
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When I started playing Battlefield 2, I realized my Nvidia GeForce 5700 ultra AGP 128meg card wasn't going to cut it.. I went looking on E-bay for a BFG 6800 256meg GT Overclocked card.. At that time I spent $250US for one.. Now you can find them for well under $200.. I highly recommend the card.. It makes water and dust look like water and dust.. The only AGP step-up from that one is the 7800 and is quite expensive..
#5
05-30-06, 06:08 PM
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$50-$100 just isn't very realistic for a Vcard to play that or any new game these days. E-bay wasn't a bad idea but why I was at it I would look for the 6800 ultra if not much more then the GT. Considerably faster card. There is a 7800GS that I think is the fastest you can get for AGP these days but probably not worth the extra $$ since you would likely have a bottle neck from your CPU which IS very important to your frame rates etc. If you find a good deal on a GT not a bad choice either.
