Confusing graphics cards

blue chuzzle

I bought a dell 5150 there a few weeks ago (yes, boo dell and all that).

it was a bizarre offer they had that was really basic in some ways and not really in others.

2.8 dual core pentium d
1 gig ddr2
80 gig hdd
1 pcie slot
1 pcie*16 slot
on board graphics(intel something or other. basicially, useless)
19 inch dell flatscreen display

€600

im looking to get a midrange graphics card for about €200 second hand and im wondering what i should be looking out for.

i have been half heartedly trying for literally years to understand and follow whats going on with various different card types slots and manufacturers.

as a side note, are there any good explanations and direct comparasons of currently available graphics cards out there? there is a thing on toms hardware that is very in depth but has way too much information for me to take in...

is pcie *16 16 times faster than pcie? or is that too obvious?


any help appreciated....

TerrorFirmer

A pci-e 1x slot is useless for gfx cards. The pci-e 16x slot is for the card.

200 notes would get you a lovely card second hand. Even a new card for a budget of 200 would be fairly decent. Have a look through a few threads here, there are several recent threads asking advise on both top range, mid range and budget cards recently.

Rough guide...for each card (all pci-e) mentioned here, there are several variants and they offer different qualities, but roughly...

Very low end - run new games on low - Ati x300, Nvidia 6200

Low end - Run new games on low/medium - Ati x600, x700, Nvidia 6600

Mid Range - Run new games on medium to high dependant on game - Ati x800, x1600, Nvidia 6800

High range - Run new games on high - Ati x1800, 1900, Nvidia 7600, 7800, 7900

Obviously, within those groups some of those cards are way better then others, but thats a real rough outline of the most common cards around...

conzy

Get a 7600gt

Its a very nice card for the money.......

8T8

For €200 get a 7600GT like this one, drivers should be kept up to date with things like modern graphics cards so check NVIDIA's site now & then.

Anyhow the latest driver can be obtained from this location Forceware 91.28 at time of writing.

The Dell bios should disable the integrated graphics when you plug in the new GPU in the event that it doesn't it would be a good idea to uninstall the Intel integrated graphics drivers if you can that is & check the bios for a manual option to disable the Intel graphics.

blue chuzzle

7600gt...

and is there any point in waiting a reasonably short space of time for a new price drop or cards or anything?

im thinking of the intel price drops that have been happening so often recently and wondering if anything similar happens for gpu's..

conzy

Nah........

Buy now;)

TerrorFirmer

If you're looking for an immediate solution there is a guy on the FS forum selling a x600 pro for 25 euro! Not the best card but it'd run new games on low towards medium...not bad for 25 notes

I have offered for it actually....:p

8T8

blue chuzzle wrote:

7600gt...

and is there any point in waiting a reasonably short space of time for a new price drop or cards or anything?

im thinking of the intel price drops that have been happening so often recently and wondering if anything similar happens for gpu's..

As conzymaher said no point in waiting, the price of mid range GPU's takes a while to drop so it probably wont be till near the end end of it's life span, that is when it's replacement comes along as the 7600GT is still very new. For 200 notes you actually get a very nice & capable graphics card in the 7600GT.

blue chuzzle

why is it €220 on komplett and so much cheaper on ebay?

im bidding for this at the moment. is there somthing different about this card? why would anyone use komplett if the prices are so out of line with what you can get elsewhere?

blue chuzzle

HavoK wrote:

If you're looking for an immediate solution there is a guy on the FS forum selling a x600 pro for 25 euro! Not the best card but it'd run new games on low towards medium...not bad for 25 notes

I have offered for it actually....:p

why would you buy that? surely your just throwing away €25. if you wanted to play games you would be much better off waiting and buying a better card(check ebay!). that one is just going to frustrate you...

TerrorFirmer

blue chuzzle wrote:

why would you buy that? surely your just throwing away €25. if you wanted to play games you would be much better off waiting and buying a better card(check ebay!). that one is just going to frustrate you...

For 25 euro it was a bargin. It may not be the top end (or even anywhere near it i suppose) of the scale but it can run battlefield 2 on medium or half life 2 on high settings....it depends on what the card was for.

I for example only ever play battlefield 2 on line - so i dont plan EVER upgrading my card as im not really interested in any other games, so if my card was to go up in smoke overnight, i'd just get a cheap 80 euro replacement...or in this case, I'd be perfectly happy with the x600 if it came to it

PogMoThoin

I'll sell ya nVidia GeForce 6800 PCI_E 325/600
PERFECT WORKING CONDITION
1 year old. surplus to requirements due to upgrade. pm me if ya interested. open to offers. goin on ebay if you not.
Been playing FEAR, Far Cry, Quake 4, Half-Life 2 etc with it. performs well

8T8

blue chuzzle wrote:

why is it €220 on komplett and so much cheaper on ebay?

im bidding for this at the moment. is there somthing different about this card? why would anyone use komplett if the prices are so out of line with what you can get elsewhere?

Well I wouldn't say eBay is a traditional retail outfit it has its own advantage and disadvantages of course so if you feel confident that you can acquire it at a cheaper price from eBay & are happy with that go for it.

According to the ebay seller's shop profile they sell OEM and refurnished graphics cards which partly explains the price, in short the traditional warranty "may" not apply to these cards so if something went wrong with it you could be up the creek without a paddle.

blue chuzzle

8T8 wrote:

According to the ebay seller's shop profile they sell OEM and refurnished graphics cards which partly explains the price, in short the traditional warranty "may" not apply to these cards so if something went wrong with it you could be up the creek without a paddle.

well, the shop site says (just below thatbit) that they do have a 1 year warranty with all their products and also the card i was bidding on was brand new. i assume that means what it says... i accept that it could be refurbished but i would give that a reasonably low probability.

i got it for €140 in the end, including postage.

now, lets hope it arrives...