Please Help!!!

[ZSD189]

I just started gaming, and I have no idea what video card to get... I'd like to stay under $150, but I want a lot of bang for my buck... I'm interested in playing call of duty and unreal tournament 2004... thanks in advance

[saphalline]

Welcome to the PC Guide forums!!

First off, do you have an AGP 8x slot? This will make it a lot easier to get a modern vid card for the best price. Also, it would help to know more specs of your system, such as CPU, RAM, mobo, OS, etc.

Working off the whole modern/AGP 8x assumption, the best deals right now in your price range would be either a Radeon 9600 or a GeForce FX 5700. All prices come from Newegg (www.newegg.com/).

Abit has a nice 256MB Radeon 9600 for only $128.50. Gigabyte has a 128MB Radeon 9600 Pro for $130. About the same price, but performance will vary slightly. Technically, the Gigabyte Pro version is faster, but the Abit one has more memory.

Similarly, you can get AOpen's 128MB GF FX 5700 for $127. eVGA's is also $127, so either one. The Ultra's are a bit over your budget, but worth noting. BFG has a 128MB 5700 Ultra with GDDR2 for $155. The price tags go up from there, but note that almost all the 5700 Ultras have some form of DDR2/3 on them (which may or may not be worth the extra green to you).

That just about does it for now. Let us know if you can't use the above vid cards because of the AGP slot fiasco.

[dlove]

I game alot too, before u buy a vid card make sure you check out if it will work wit your current system.. Most of the time you will not have a problem but, you never know. Ihere were some issues i had wit the radeon 8500 on my Windows 2000 while playing Mechwarrior4 but i was able to fix it..so before u buy research the cards. Also make sure u have lots of ram......RAM IS GOOD!!