Video Card help

[diffuser78]

I have a Sempron AMD processor with an on board video card. The sis drivers don't work that well. I was planning to put an extra video card for enhanced performance. My budget is around 50-100 bucks.

Can you guys suggest some ATI or eVGA or any other card ?

[pseudonym]

My motherboard is AGP 4x and I use a nvidia geforce 4 ti 4400. It is quite simply the best piece of hardware I've ever owned. It's getting old but it will play any game you throw at it - I recently completed F.E.A.R in windows and averaged 40 fps in 1024x768 (though with most of the eye candy turned off, of course). I can't recommend this series of cards highly enough.

If your motherboard is agp 8x you should look at getting a nvidia fx 5900 or ati radeon 9800. If it's PCIE you should save some more cash and buy one of the more recent video cards.

hth

[diffuser78]

I am not very good with video card hardware details as I am not a big gamer.

How do I find out that motherboard is AGP4x or 8x ?

If you could have a look at the specs of my desktop here (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?dlc=en&tool=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&product=471644&dest_page=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&docname=c00387087#)

BTW, My motherboard is Asus K8S-LA (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c00257657)

The specs say that It has PCI as well as AGP slots available.

All your help is appreciated.



My motherboard is AGP 4x and I use a nvidia geforce 4 ti 4400. It is quite simply the best piece of hardware I've ever owned. It's getting old but it will play any game you throw at it - I recently completed F.E.A.R in windows and averaged 40 fps in 1024x768 (though with most of the eye candy turned off, of course). I can't recommend this series of cards highly enough.

If your motherboard is agp 8x you should look at getting a nvidia fx 5900 or ati radeon 9800. If it's PCIE you should save some more cash and buy one of the more recent video cards.

hth

[pseudonym]

According to the board specs, you have a agp 8x slot (this has been the standard for about the last two years anyway). This is important from the point of view card compatibility.

Next step is to decide what you want the extra video performance for. If you're not much of a gamer but you want good performance on dvds/tv/video, you might want to look into buying a matrox video card. These are optimised for video performance. Check out www.matrox.com for available models. For your budget you should be able to pick up a 128mb Parhelia on ebay.

On the other hand, if you want more 3d graphics power, go for an nvidia card. 2nd hand fx 5900 128mb cards are right in your price range and are excellent performers. Same with the ati 9800 128mb, although I recommend nvidia because their linux support has traditionally been better.

Mind you, you will get excellent 2d video performance out of an nvidia 5900. It's just that matrox are best known for making high quality 2d video cards. So unless you're a 2d performance freak, I'd go with the nvidia option to give you the most bang and versatility for your buck. They are also easier to get working at optimum level under linux.