PCI video card

[hockey man]

Hey my roommate just got a dell 3000 (feel free to rant) and is looking to help his onboard graphics abit. It has Extreme Graphics 2 :mad: :eek: :( :mad: . Anyway, he is playing a lot of Warcraft III throzen throne (http://www.blizzard.com/war3x/), and has a tight budget- $50. He has 512 RAM and XP home. What would you recommend?

P.s, right now his pc is jumpy when he is playing LAN multiplayer.

[DigitalJ]

PCIe or AGP 8x? There are a number of vid cards out there in that price range, and most of them would be at least some help to his gameplay experience. Here is a link to shopping.com...filtered all vid cards under $100.

http://www2.shopping.com/xPP-Graphics_Cards--price_range_0_100

Just to put it into perspective, though, a GeForce FX5200 (128mb) that sells for $45 or so posts a not so impressive mark of 1550 on 3DMark03 benchmark test. And that's without any goodies turned on at 1024x768 res. Compare that with the 12000+ scores that the high end vid cards post on the same test and you can see what $50 gets you.

[DigitalJ]

Okay, so I'm an idiot and can't read. Here is the same link updated for PCIe...

http://www2.shopping.com/xPP-Graphics_Cards--price_range_0_100--pci_express

And for just PCI...

http://www2.shopping.com/xPP-Graphics_Cards--price_range_0_100--interface_pci

[hockey man]

O.k. which card is better. One based on the ATI Radeon 9250, the Geforce MX4000, or the Geforce FX5200? Or should I go with a no-name manufacturer Geforce FX5500 256mb? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143032)

[DigitalJ]

Here is a link to THG's VGA charts. If you're looking in the $50 range, you'll probably want to go with the earlier charts, as VII for instance won't even include GPU's that lowly :)

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/vga_charts.html

You can compare a bunhc of different benchmarks at your leisure. Remember when looking at framerates that you want 70fps or more if you want a smooth game experience.

[hockey man]

Actually, he bumped his budget up to around $80.

[saphalline]

Remember when looking at framerates that you want 70fps or more if you want a smooth game experience.Actually, 30fps does pretty well, and 60fps is ideal. 70fps is good, too. ;)

hockey man - Tell us what slot he has and we can work from there. From what has been said already, the FX 5200 would be ideal for the $50 range. Intel Extreme Graphics 2 means he has the i865G chipset, so it's either going to be AGP 8x or PCI. At $80, he can just barely get a Radeon 9600 Pro for AGP 8x, or an FX 5200 or FX 5500 for PCI. I really hope he has an AGP 8x slot! A 9600 Pro would be awesome for that price, and would really boost his gaming performance by a lot.

Adding more RAM would help, too, but adding a dedicated vid card is more important in his case. The reason is that his onboard video performance sucks and it eats up RAM as well! Slapping in a vid card will free up a bit of his RAM and boost his raw gaming performance all at once. Not a bad deal, eh? ;)

[hockey man]

Hey my roommate just got a dell 3000. . .

As posted before, if you check the site you see it only has 3 PCI slots-plus... I've opened her up and saw that for myself. I'm learning :) . Also, the budget is now at $70-80. Saph, this is a low end dell, do you honestly think they would spend the money to put a AGP or PCIe slot in there?

I'm running into problems finding a Sub $80 FX5500. I found this on (http://datavisioncomputer.com/webapp/commerce/command/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=1247201&prmenbr=2000) but I've never heard of the store before.

Or this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143032) at newegg, but I havn't seen that brand before.

What do you think of this ebay deal? (http://cgi.ebay.com/PCI-NVIDIA-GEFORCE-FX5500-128MB-FX-5500-with-DVI-TV-Out_W0QQitemZ5240316609QQcategoryZ40161QQtcZphotoQ QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[saphalline]

If you go for the "buy it now" price, even with the shipping, that EBay one is a good deal. It has a DVI connector unlike the Newegg offering. And unless you check that other store on Reseller Ratings, don't buy from them.

For future reference, BFG Tech is a good vid card manufacturer. They're one of the rising stars that I've had my eye on lately. BFG burst onto the scene within the last two years with nothing but great vid cards. Good track record so far, but still relatively unknown. Another one of the rising stars that I've been keeping track of is Patriot (they make RAM).

[poppy]

The Ebay one is a good price. I would be curious who the manufacturer is. Maybe you could ask the seller who it is. Another member of the forum, Moses86, had been wondering also. I don't know if he bought a card yet, but this is exactly the one he had described.

I agree with saph, from the research I have done and reading up on, BFG is good and everything I have read up on for Patriot also points to being a manufacturer who makes reliable RAM.