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Upgrade for a value machine

q974739

q974739

q974739

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Joined
4 Feb 2009
Posts
1,396
I bought one of OcUK's rather good value machines the other month to replace a rather old celeron rig. It's been fine (well, faulty dvd drive, but that's being replaced, so no problem) - but I've gone and bought a bigger screen.

1680 * 1050. And the 3870 I've got just isn't quite up to it any more. Not for fallout 3.

So would anyone recomend a replacement card? It's based in this case...

Would any of you be good enough to tell me what the sane and practical graphics card would be for this?

Am thinking in terms of the wattage of the system (aka, before it melts), the size of the card (it's no good if it's longer then the case!), the heat generated (actualy melting things is BAD) and price (here, I'm flexible...no more then a pair of shoes and a handbag for the gf. Call it 100-120....)

So, advice, please?
 
A 9800GTX+ is what you should be looking at in this price range, if you want Nvidia. However, they are quite long. 4850s are about an inch shorter.
 
Rather than start a new thread, I'm in need of a new graphics card too as my pc has now decided not to play Company of Heroesor CoD4. At the moment i am on a 7200 GS, I'm looking at only mainly 9600/9800s as I only need one for 6 months before uni and a new laptop, so I see no point in spending massive amounts of money. At the moment I have seen a few for about 75 quid, with "1GB Palit 9600 GT Super, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), Mem 800MHz GDDR2, GPU 650MHz, 64 Cores, 2 x DL DVI-I/ HDTV" looking the most attractive at the moment (won't link as it's from Scan.)

The rest of my computer is also fairly aged, with a 'Inter(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)' processor and only 1024MB of memory, but apparently that can be easily and cheaply upgraded. The Motherboard is also PCI-Express.

I'm really unknowledgeable when computers are concerned and as such any feedback would be appreciated. :)
 
Buy a 2nd-hand 8800 for about £60 and spend £20 on some new ram. You'll be flying in no time (assuming your motherboard is PCI-E).
 
reflux said:
A 9800GTX+ is what you should be looking at in this price range, if you want Nvidia. However, they are quite long. 4850s are about an inch shorter.
Click to expand...

The Gigabyte 9800Gtx+ with the Zalman cooler is much smaller than the standard cards, runs much cooler and only requires 1x 6 pin power connector.
 
StewartMG said:
Rather than start a new thread, I'm in need of a new graphics card too
Click to expand...

Best bet in your price range would indeed be the 9600GT, but bear in mind it requires extra power from a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. If you don't have one of these available, a Radeon 4670 would suit you fine as it doesn't require one.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-184-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1274

I would also upgrade the RAM - CoH really needs 2GB. Do you know what type of RAM you currently have (ie - DDR/DDR2)?
 
Yeah that's one of the cards on my 'short-list' Reflux.

Aekeron: is the best place to get a second hand card ebay or just browse some forums and hope I get lucky?

Also, Memory Type: DDR (Got CPU-Z working so I can tell you most things I think).

Also I'm only on 1280x1024 but I don't really care about video settings on games I would prefer them to run smoothly at 800x600 than being choppy at 1280 (as I have to do for Medieval TW2 atm).
 
There is a member's market here but you have to have 250 posts before you can access it. Check eBay.

DDR is pretty rare now, 2GB of it new costs about £40. Might be an idea to run the games with your new card, and then decide if you want to upgrade the RAM as well.
 
Yeah well on Company of Heroes there is a video I can run to check my fps, so i'll use that and see if it runs smoothly enough without the extra ram. A couple of the other people I have asked have warned me off ebay because of it's unreliable nature, so I'll have a look but unless it's a big cash save I will probably lean towards one of the proper websites.
 
Does the type of memory on the graphics card need to be compatiable with the type of memory in my computer?
 
Ok thanks :) Most of the ones I am looking at are DDR3. At the moment just browsing ebay, found a 'XFX Geforce 8800GS / 384MB / NVidia Graphics Card' for 63 pounds including P&P which seems quite good.
 
Looks like I might have to be sneaky with bids on ebay and hopefully can get a 9600 512 for about 50 quid.
 
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