Advice needed - what card???

[valve90210]

Hi all I'm new to the forum, was trying to find advice on graphics cards, stumbled across this forum and thought you guys might be able to help me.

Basically I am going to upgrade my graphics card from the Geforce FX5200 that came with the computer and has up until now been a fine card, even playing Halflife 2 without a problem (ok not at massive resolutions but perfectly acceptably!!!)

The rest of the system is as follows:

Processor is a 2.8ghz Pentium 4
1 Stick of DDR-Ram - 512MB
Network card built into motherboard.
Soundblaster Live 5.1 sound card
Pinnacle systems Studio DC10+ video capture card

1 DVD drive
1 DVD-RW drive
2 Hard Drives - IDE

The power supply is a 300W power supply from someone called Powerman or soemthing like that, (it came with the computer).

My mother board does not have a PCI express slot so I'm limited to an AGP card and I'd prefer an Nvidia one ideally. I'm not looking necessarily for a top of the range mega expensive card, but I do want something which is a significant step up from what I have and that will be able to run Halflife 2 and Farcry well.

I want a card which has both DVI and VGA outputs as I want a dual monitor setup.

I was contemplating one of the 6800 GS cards (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/6800_Series.html) would one of these be suitable??? Or are there better options available (baring in mind that I won’t be over clocking cos I really don’t know enough about the technical side of computers to feel comfortable about doing so)

From the reading I’ve been doing I believe I will need to upgrade my power supply in order to be able to use this card (or indeed pretty much any card of similar performance), now this is an area I really know nothing about. Having looked at a few places and not really know what I’m look for (other than the fact that it needs to be greater than 300W…)

Can anyone recommend any PSUs?. I don’t really want to be spending huge amounts on this but I want something that will let everything run fine.

Phew, sorry for the long first post but I wanted to include as much as I could to make it easier for anyone to give me advice.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me.

Valve

 

[valve90210]

Thanks for the replies guys, a couple of quick questions.

1) what brands of PSU are regarded as good, I've looked on here and there are so many to choose from I really don't know where to start. I'm no bothered about how it looks etc, just want something that will do the job and last a while.

2) Are there any other cards you’d recommend that would be suitable, if the 6800 GS performed better than the V9999 that you’ve mentioned then I’d rather go for the better performing one rather than the cheaper one because I want the card to do me for quite a while as I have no desire to upgrade the rest of my system any time soon as it does everything I want fine (well Farcry could perform better), so I’d rather spend a bit more and get more performance.


Valve

 

[valve90210]

Well after doing some reading up on the 7800G, and including the fact that I was planning on saving for my upgrades for a month or so, I think I'm gonna wait and see what happens on the 7800GS front before I do anything... knowingmy luck it'll come out but won't have the option of dual monitors...or something equally annoying that makes it not suitable.... but fingers crossed.

Valve

 

[valve90210]

Has there been any firm indication of what the price might be?

Valve

 

[valve90210]

Just been reading on another forum, about the 7800GS and noticed a link to yet another forum and a thread that includes (about halfway down) a list ranking loads of graphics cards:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=220145

I noticed that the 6800GS comes in about halfway thru the High End rated graphics cards with the note that pretty much any card in the range is overkill for any game that is out there. Now considering I don't really play many games, only really Halflife 2 and I recently purchased Farcry, would I be right in thinking that a 6800 would be perfectly adequate for running such games well, especially considering I am upgrading from a Geforce FX5200...

If so, and the 7800GS is gonna be price about £230 - £250, would I be better off just going for the 6800GS and save my self potentially £70 maybe more if the 7800GS is any dearer when i comes out or would the extra future potential of the 7800GS be worth the extra, considering I'm not gonna be upgrading the rest of my system any time soon (ie not within the next 2 years)???

Valve