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Been out of the system building scene for a while and need some advice...

Zenoxx

Zenoxx

Zenoxx

Associate
Joined
2 Jan 2003
Posts
208
Hi all,

Long time since ive posted here as havnt really been doing much with system building etc...

Hoping someone can give me a bit of advice on what graphics card to choose.

My mate just baught a HP Pavilion a6442 :rolleyes:
He did get a good deal, and to me the only thing lacking is the graphics card... According to the website its a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS but on windows its showing a 512MB 8600 GT (Maybe HP updated it?)

The rest of the system is as follows:
Intel G33 express chipset
Intel Core2 Quad processor Q6600
4GB RAM (God knows which they put in)

So now to the question...
Which graphics card is good now for sensible money? Maybe £100 to £150 quid... and should I get him an ATI or NVidia to go with the Intel G33 Chipset and Quad Processor? Was looking at 8800GTX or 9600 but not sure....

He is gonna run the pc on either his 22inch lcd or via hdmi 720p 50" plasma....


Thanks in advance guys
 
Last edited:
Ah looks a good deal on that card.

Ive been out of things for so long not too knowledgeable on PCI-E ... will it just swap over easily... should I worry about the power consumption over the 8600GT thats in there?

Oh and also I think the Intel G33 express chipset is only PCI v1? Does that make a major diff?



Tetsu said:
4850 is amazing for the cash £120 ish.

if you/he can stretch then £180 for a 4870
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I would very much recommend the ATI 4850, some amazing performance for the price, consumes less power than quite a few of the Nvidia options, so wouldn't worry about that. (saying that, what PSU does your friend have? I would never recommend cheap generic brands (Qtec) for PSU, they have a nasty habit of exploding).
Regarding the PCI-E question, I couldn't imagine it making that much difference overall, as as far as I'm aware, the full bandwidth isn't being used up as it :)
 
It was a 300W power supply, not sure of the make.
Well we went down to pc world cause he didnt mind spending the extra pennies to get it straight away. Got the sapphire one and installed it for him, all ok and the graphics were at least twice as fast.

Did a calculator on the net for how much power for all the system bits and it came out at around 300w anyway, so hoping it will hold out :o)

Cheers for the advice all! :cool:




Klo said:
I would very much recommend the ATI 4850, some amazing performance for the price, consumes less power than quite a few of the Nvidia options, so wouldn't worry about that. (saying that, what PSU does your friend have? I would never recommend cheap generic brands (Qtec) for PSU, they have a nasty habit of exploding).
Regarding the PCI-E question, I couldn't imagine it making that much difference overall, as as far as I'm aware, the full bandwidth isn't being used up as it :)
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Would definately advise hes spends some pennies and gets a new PSU. Running a PSU on the edge of its capacity is asking for trouble; maybe not in the next half an hour, or the next day, but sooner or later its likely to go pop, and if a PSU goes pop, sometimes so does the rest of the system; is it worth £50 now; or £500 to him later?
 
Just looking at some calculators, they reckon about 250w max while gaming etc. Its a 300w so i think it'll be ok... ?


Alexrose1uk said:
Would definately advise hes spends some pennies and gets a new PSU. Running a PSU on the edge of its capacity is asking for trouble; maybe not in the next half an hour, or the next day, but sooner or later its likely to go pop, and if a PSU goes pop, sometimes so does the rest of the system; is it worth £50 now; or £500 to him later?
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Depends on the brand of PSU as well... They don't all give the power they claim to, especially the lesser known brands. I'd also remove the name of the competitor :)
 
Ill pop past his and open it up to see the make..im assuming its gonna be by jimbob or somebody...lol :rolleyes:


Green_Giant said:
Depends on the brand of PSU as well... They don't all give the power they claim to, especially the lesser known brands. I'd also remove the name of the competitor :)
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