graphics card upgrade

[martysweeney]

hi guys, i have a packard bell imedia 351 system with 1 gb ddr memory and a 256mb ati sapphire 9550 graphics card. i wanted to know what would be the best graphics card to get for my pc, i think this graphics card is on its last legs.. and if there is any thing else i should think about getting for my pc.. any input would be greatful.. :)

[doas777]

how old is this PC? I checked the Packard bell site to get the motherboard specs, and could not find a 351 model in the imedia line, but they only list models since 2004.

the question is what kind of port do you have for the video card. PCI, AGP 8x, PCI-E (newer), etc. if you only have a PCI slot, then your card is already pretty maximal.

what do you want to do with it? if it's gaming, what resolution do you plan to use? at standard resolutions, the CPU does most of the work. the GPU isn't really used unless you are running at high res.

good luck

[martysweeney]

this is the serial no of the pc. 049684120219.
it has an agp card slot.
i think this pc is only about 2 years old if that. i bought it off a mate and im not sure what year it is.

thanks for the quick reply

[doas777]

check out these (I don't know your price range). it looks like nvidia jumped to PCIE quicker than ATI so Radeons are most of what i find, unless you want to downgrade.

I selected Asus because they make good stuff, but you can back up one level and select whatever vendor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%2050001315%201069609639&name=ASUS

also always check the HCL: http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/

good luck

[HyRax]

this is the serial no of the pc. 049684120219.
it has an agp card slot.
i think this pc is only about 2 years old if that. i bought it off a mate and im not sure what year it is.

thanks for the quick reply

AGP? It'll be a lot older than 2 years, mate - more like 5 years plus. AGP has been dead for awhile, though that said some manufacturers have tried to milk a bit more out of the technology. NVidia re-released a selection of their lower-end cards in AGP, but they're nowhere near as good as their PCI-E counterparts as you might expect. For example, you can still get GeForce 7600GS cards in AGP form-factor.

But seriously, the money you'd pay for such a card would start at about $130. Consider buying a whole new PC. You can build pretty bloody good desktop machines for under $300 using NEW components now, and have enough grunt to do virtualisation and mid-range 3D gaming too! Plus it'll be upgradeable to beefier gfx cards if you needed it because they all carry PCI-E slots.

[martysweeney]

thanks guys it was really helpful, i was thinking about building a pc as a project, i would have about 2/3 hundred quid to do so any ideas what i should think about getting..

[HyRax]

Talk to your local PC shop, but look at a cheap Asus or Gigabyte motherboard (but not too cheap - don't go one with on-board gfx if you want a reasonable modicum of performance), Any E-series Intel CPU has quite a bit of go in it for what they are - DON'T go Celeron - not enough cache. The low end Intel CPU's don't have hardware virtualisation, but Virtualbox's software virtualisation performs amazingly well. Get 2GB RAM, a 160GB SATA HDD minimum, generic midi-tower case with 450-550w PSU, and a low-end (perhaps passively cooled) NVidia-based 8600GS card or similar (but try and get a low-end 9xxx series card or greater - they shouldn't be much more expensive).

That's an uber budget system at between AUD$300-$400 that will give you reasonable performance under Windows, excellent performance under Linux and reasonable 3D performance for most recent-ish games, and easily upgraded to bigger hardware without needing to re-buy the whole PC. You may even have some headroom to overclock, but beware that you really need to invest in a higher quality motherboard plus better heat sinks and fans to get the most out of overclocking.

Cut out the 3D card and replace with on-board motherboard gfx and drop the RAM to 1GB and you can save another $100 or so on that. Recycle other components in your existing system such optical drive, monitor, keyboard & mouse and save even more money.

[martysweeney]

thanks hyrax you've been really helpful. :)

oops and thanks to doas777 as well..