Upgrade for gaming

shayser

My son has a PC for gaming mostly. It an Athlon 2800 (I think), 1gb of ram, GForce4 64mb AGP, Windows 2000.

More and more games are saying sorry-no-can-do with this machine. What video card should he get now? There is no PCI Express slot on the board. Should he go for XP or Vista?

Edit: Sorry, can this be moved to Building & Upgrading.

stevejazzx

well it looks a pc ugrade if he wants it for modern games
however there is a range of agp cards that might cover his needs. Only things is that if you opt for a big agp like this
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=317656

you would need to review the case setup and make sure you have enough power from the psu and enough cooling and that your mobo is compatible. A lot of hassle and you might have problems.
A radeon 9800xt256mb is an older card which would probably be more stable in your system and would play a lot of modern games albeit with lowish settings.

I recommend an investment here. Keep in mind direct x 10 and vista and futture proofing as much as possible.
A vista compatible machine with next generation graphics card would cost around 1500euro....

If that s too much I recommend
A cheap conroe based system with a 7600gt/7900gt graphics card installed.

good luck with it

steve

TerrorFirmer

2800 and 1gig of ram is still relatively ok for most games, so maybe try throw in something like this:

http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=324393

its a decent option without breaking the bank and certainly miles ahead of a Geforce 4. No point putting anything too expensive in there as the 2800 will only serve as a bottleneck anyway.

What sort of games does he play? The above card would get by comfortably even on new demanding games like Oblivion and the like.

http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307933

Or this - cheaper, outdated but still ahead of the Geforce 4 to keep you tided over until a new computer.

Gurgle

shayser wrote:

What video card should he get now? There is no PCI Express slot on the board. Should he go for XP or Vista?

This would do nicely for a couple of years. No point in spending more on an AGP card now as it will be redundant when you upgrade the rest of the PC.

Vista is just another income generating release of XP, it will make no difference.

joe_chicken

HavoK wrote:

2800 and 1gig of ram is still relatively ok for most games, so maybe try throw in something like this:

Both those cards are PCI Express?!

Komplett's your best bet

Just look for a card you need... and then google for reviews

TerrorFirmer

Dammit sorry - those cards come in AGP as well, I linked to the PCI-E by mistake, sorry, I was thinking agp when I wrote that though. Updated.

Unless he plays the latest games, the 6200 suggested by gurgle is a good idea. It will run all new games out there, although most at low settings, but enough to get by until you upgrade to a newer system.

Again, it also depends on what sort of games he plays. A 6200 is a fine card for certain games, just not the latest FPS and some of the RTS titles in particular.

Check adverts.ie finally - 40-50 quid will get you a 9600XT - still a fine card for the money despite its age and very commonplace. I replaced my girlfriends 9200 with one, didn't think it would perform as good as it does. She's happily playing Battlefield 2 at mid settings on a card that cost me about 50 euro at the time.

Khannie

shayser wrote:

Edit: Sorry, can this be moved to Building & Upgrading.

It's turned into a more general graphics card + upgrade discussion, so I'll leave it here for now. PM me if you'd like me to move it later.

I used to have a 2800+. With a gig of ram and a 9800 pro or 6600GT it should be fine for most games. Those processors overclock nicely too. I got mine to the speed of a 3200+ with the stock cooler without changing voltage levels.

shayser

Cheers people, you've pointed me in the right direction in no time.

shayser

Sorry for bringing up an old thread....

I'm buying some other stuff from Elara so would this do?

http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1226981

Khannie

That's a pretty low end card. See if you can get a 2nd hand 9800 pro on ebay for around the same price (just checked...you can, so my advice would be that you do. It's a great card for the money.). The 2800+ would reach the bottleneck point with a 6600GT (ish) which wouldn't cost much more. You could probably pick one of those up for 100 euro at this stage (less 2nd hand).

shayser

Good advice Khannie but it has to be a Christmas present for a 9-year-old as well as a graphics card! so I would like to get new. Looks like I will have to go with the next one up at Elara which is this at more that twice the price.

daywalker

shayser wrote:

Looks like I will have to go with the next one up at Elara which is this at more that twice the price.

Or you could go with this one slightly cheaper option, its €130 including postage

Khannie

There's a new 9800 pro on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ATI-Radeon-9800-Pro-128-mb-AGP-New-and-Unused-256Bit_W0QQitemZ120061918654QQihZ002QQcategoryZ27387QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You could ask the guy to put up a "buy now" price.

Otherwise you're looking at the x1600. I don't think there's much point getting the cheaper card tbh.