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Graphics card upgrade suggestions

eddie86

eddie86

eddie86

Associate
Joined
2 Jan 2009
Posts
302
Hi,

I bought my computer 4 years ago now, have done nothing to upgrade it and I'm really starting to struggle with graphics on newer games.

I'm looking to spend less than £70 if possible for a new graphics card and any extra for RAM if needed.

My System Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+
2 x 512Mb DDR RAM
550 Watt Power Supply

Graphics Card:
ATi Radeon X800 XL 256Mb

I am using a 19" monitor at the minute and I'm not looking to change that so massive resolution settings are not a priority at the moment.

Can you give me so suggestions on what would suit my needs?

Also, on my motherboard, I have 2 PCI-e (x16) slots and in between them on the ASUS label it says "Dual Video Cards" and there is another sticker saying "A8N - SLi Deluxe". Can I run 2 cards in parallel using the slots?

(Explainations in layman's term would be most appreciated!)

Thanks in advance,

Ed
 
yes you can run two of the same nvidia cards together but better with one fast card just now
as even this willl be held back by your cpu

as for cards

ati 4830 (slightly more than £70)

nvidia 9600gt if you go for this you can get another later but your cpu will hold it back



is what i would get at that price range
 
Last edited:
Can you up your budget to around £100? That would buy you a significantly better card (ATi 4670/Nvidia 9600GT) and 2GB of DDR.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I am just about settled I think on my upgrade. I will probably get the following unless someone tells me it's rubbish!

Graphics Card:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-087-GW&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1274&name=Gainward%20ATI%20Radeon%20HD%204650%20512MB%20DDR2%20TV-Out/Dual%20DVI/HDMI%20(PCI-Express)%20-%20Retail

- Because it's cheaper than the other 4670's and has a VGA output (I don't want to buy a DVI cable if I can help it).

BTW, how much better is DVI than VGA? Does it just allow you to use higher resolutions?

RAM:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-092-CR

What do you reckon?

Cheers,

Ed
 
Comments :-

1. If you use all 4 ram slots , motherboard will auto downclock your ram to ddr 333. (Problem with nvidia 4 chipset if memory serves correctly). Increasing ram will not speed up most games much anyway. (Nice to have - Yes Essential - No)

2. Would suspect that your gpu is most likely to slow games down - Get a 9600gt - should give a good boost & you can go sli (dual card) later if your so minded.

If you really want to upgrade your ram then a little later why not buy 2x1gig sticks and sell your 512mb's
 
Thanks for the advice guys.

If you use all 4 ram slots , motherboard will auto downclock your ram to ddr 333
Click to expand...

After a bit of searching it appears that the nforce4 chipset does downclock the RAM to 333MHz when all 4 slots are used.

I assume that it I got the 2x1Gb of RAM then having 3Gb at 333MHz would still be better than 2Gb at 400Mhz?
 
Yes more memory is always better, shorter loading times, less HD accessing which will keep the framerate more consistant, running with too little memory totally kills the performance of games, as i found out when i first got battlefield 2 modern combat, i only had 1 gig ram at the time and the loading times were frustratingly long, as well as when you first loaded a new map the first 40 seconds of gameplay were badly affected by slowdowns caused by lots of Hard drive activity, having just 1 gig is going to get you very poor performance in games, even older ones
 
I received my new graphics card yesterday.

I opted for the 9600GT in the end, turned out to be a Palit card with a massive heatsink/fan arrangement.

I also got another 1Gb of RAM.

After testing out the RAM first it made pretty much no difference to the FPS when gaming but it's defininetly helped when running SolidWorks on my machine! I was using 950Mb when that was running.

The 9600GT has upped level of graphics quality that I can run nicely although not quite as much as I was expecting tbh.

I think my processor is holding back the performance some what 'cause when I shut down all the background tasks like virus scan etc I get another step up in frame rates.

The 9600GT is pretty good for the £75 though I must say, graphics cards are getting seriously good in terms of cost/performance these days.

Thank you to all who gave me advice on the upgrade btw. Also to the others who helped me with my power supply questions.

All I need now is a few pointers on overclocking it lol
 
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