I want a Graphics card.. so help out

slimwadey

slimwadey

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Ok i have a Dell dektop PC i bought on ebay a while back for the missus to use

They screwed up when i bought it and sent me two !
So i have one i want to use instead of my laptop, i can then plug in my Xbox DVD drives and HDD drives and Flash or hack them, i have bought the SATA card ready

But i also want to use it for the odd game, i would like to play Civ Rev on it and maybe UT3 too

I have about £80 in paypal for a graphics card and want some advice on getting the best for the system and my money, i am prepared to buy Secondhand to get a better on for the money

Can you help me ?

This is the ebay ad so you can see the spec DELL DESKTOP GAMING PC COMPUTER 2 DUO 2.4= 4.8GHZ .. on eBay (end time 23-Apr-10 22:09:31 BST)

the link should stay live for long enough

Please help me out as i have never bought a graphics card for a PC and dont want a melon

Thanks
Steve
 
Titcher said:
You're mostly out of luck. Unless by gaming you mean using CAD, you're not going to be able to get a modern gaming graphics card in there. Actually, you could get something outdated in there. You're restricted to AGP.

You might want these:
HIS HD 4670 IceQ Edition 1GB DDR3 Native HDMI DVI VGA.. | Ebuyer.com
Inno3D 7600GT 512MB DDR2 DVI VGA Out AGP Graphics Card | Ebuyer.com

The first one, the ATI one is the stronger one I believe.
Click to expand...

This means nothing to me , i figured i could just buy a card and pop it in the pci or pci-x slot?
help me understand
Steve
 
PCI-X is different to PCI Express.

Any modern graphics cards you can buy today uses PCI Express so would not be compatible with the motherboard in your computer, this is because your motherboard is not capable of taking a PCI Express card.

The graphics cards Titcher linked to are not the most modern or up to date cards out there, however use the AGP interface so will be compatible with your motherboard as it is capable of taking an AGP card. Both graphics cards should allow UT 3 to play ok, I honestly couldn't say how well though.
 
Ok i get it . good job i did not pay for this pc or i would be a bit fed up that it is old hat

Ok so it has pci, pci-x and agp slots .. what is the best slot type to use, i want to hunt ebay for the best card i can get

I mainly play on my 360 so this pc is not for a lot of gaming i really want to play the copy of Civ Rev complete i have for the pc .. and UT3 i bought for PC on the day of release and have never played it because my laptop was not good enough
 
AGP would be the best type of card to get, as for the best card its looks to be the ATI 4670. I have not come across many AGP cards better than that.

You can get one for around £80 on Ebuyer as Titcher pointed out.
 
Ok i have been having a search and used the info in this thread , these two are the best i think i have found
both are within my price range and both have good reviews

Sapphire HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDCP HDTV out.. | Ebuyer.com
PowerColor HD 4670 PCS Edition 1GB DDR3 DVI VGA Out.. | Ebuyer.com

The first one, the Sapphire has less ram (512) than the Power colour (1GB)

i know its not always about the most ram but the best way to utilise it
the sapphire has 16 reviews and the P Colour has only 2 ..

Do i go with the well known Sapphire or the [cheaper and seemingly more powerful] Power colour ?

Slim
 
The maker of the card is less important then the chipset it uses. The ATI 4670 chipset with 1 GB of ram is going to be pretty nice on any brand of card. And Powercolor is a fine brand, btw. You should be pleased.
 
If you Google "ATI 3850 vs 4670" most people appear to say there is not that much between the two cards and generally argue which of the two is better and why. I would honestly go with the cheapest which is the 4670.

Apparently the 4670 performs better with anti aliasing and the 3850 performs better without and the 4670 uses slightly less power.

Thats a point actually, any idea what the PSU in your PC is rated at? it should say on a sticker somewhere how many watts it is. Ideally you want at least a 400w PSU.
 
Ah yeah. InsaneNutter is totally right there! OEM machines quite commonly have PSUs that are JUST good enough for the machine. I've seen a pre-built machine with a 120W PSU, that's right 120W, it wasn't a specialist low power super small one, it was a normal M-ATX system with a crappy celeron. Unsurprisingly when the person who owned it added a couple of PCI cards, it frequently overloaded the PSU.
 
Titcher said:
Ah yeah. InsaneNutter is totally right there! OEM machines quite commonly have PSUs that are JUST good enough for the machine. I've seen a pre-built machine with a 120W PSU, that's right 120W, it wasn't a specialist low power super small one, it was a normal M-ATX system with a crappy celeron. Unsurprisingly when the person who owned it added a couple of PCI cards, it frequently overloaded the PSU.
Click to expand...

Well ... i have been looking into this as i have been reading up and the pc is a Dell, unfortunately the PSU is only a 360w

As with most dell stuff it is a different size to most std PSU types , i am researching swapping it out for a bigger version or upgrading the existing one

Slim
 
360W isn't terrible. Give it a go, if your PC starts turning off every half hour, then you'll know you need a new power supply.
 
Yep. Quite shocking right? Everything was integrated and the whole system was quite low power. But yeah, it was JUST at the power limit, two PCI cards were enough to push it over the limit.
 
I hope it works out for you. You might have trouble with card needing two slots of space.
 
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