HELP- Looking To Buy My First Graphics Card!

Matthew Blake

I figured that, if anyone, the guys over at Polycount would be able to help me out with this.

I am wanting to finally upgrade my 4-year-old PC and buy a graphics card. It's a Dell DIM2400, with a single PCI slot. I'm leaning towards more of a budget card- I haven't got a whole lot of money to spend, and it's not like I'm wanting to play Crysis on max settings.

Does anyone know where I can find a good, cheap graphics card, and what kind?

Jonathan

A single PCI slot, and a Dell, not a good thing to add a new video card in it.

I would guess it's integrated graphics, and your options for a PCI card are quite limited.

RustyFranks

also more expensive to find PCI vid cards. i had to get one for my cousins comp not too long ago... my choice was easy though.. fry's only carried one kind and other stores didn't at all lol. and couldn't wait for shipping.

Archanex

What's your price range? You may be able to find a used PC for what you would spend on a new graphics card and be better off in the long run

Matthew Blake

I wasn't really planning on spending that much- like I said, I don't need anything super intense or powerful. Being able to play the Orange Box would be nice, so I guess I could use that as a benchmark or goal.

A friend of mine had recommended a Radeon 9250 256 Mb. I know it's a little old, but will it get the job done?

Keg

well since the rest of the system is unknown, that card might play orange box, no guarantee that it would be able to handle the upgraded graphics that have been added to the source engine since episode 1.

Your system should have an agp slot so you should look into that and then look into an agp card instead of a pci card. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agp for pics). Can't really help to well if the system specs are unknown other than being a dell.

As for where to find parts, newegg.com is worth looking at. there's also ncix.com which is more for canadians, but they do ship to the states as well.

ElysiumGX

Matthew Blake wrote: »

A friend of mine had recommended a Radeon 9250 256 Mb. I know it's a little old, but will it get the job done?

No. You want atleast a 9800 these days. But honestly, for an AGP slot, find the best you can get. I recently owned an Radeon X1600, and while it's possible to play HL2 games with it, it did affect my score in TF2 when the on-screen action picked up. Portal wasn't a problem.

ironbearxl

A single pci slot or pci-e slot?
I have a geforce 6800 256mb pci-e card that I don't need anymore; replaced on a new rig with a Zotac 8800 GT 512 amp edition!

Ryno

If it's a pci-e slot, I'd go for a 9600 (cheaper ~ $140) or 8800GT (faster ~ $190). There is no need to spend more, as your system will bottleneck due to processor speed for anything more. Even with these cards, you won't be able to use their full potential with a 4 year old system.

If it's a regular pci (non pci-express), you're screwed. They don't make decent cards for this anymore.

Pope Adam

There are some really decent cards out there for good prices. 8800 GT is a good card that whould fit your slots within your price range and give you quite a bit of performance.

considering you are running a 4 year old PC might slow you down. Ultimately, you may want to upgrade other features of you computer as well i.e. RAM

PolyHertz

Without a PCI-E or AGP slot your not going to be able to get much. Even with agp 7800 is the highest you'll be able to go. Looking a PCI options on newegg you're not going to be able to get anything beyond a Radeon 9800 equivalent (A card that came out over 5 years ago). Honestly your going to want to get a new computer with an open pci-e port if you want to get a graphics card as pci really wont net you much beyond botom of the barrel performance.