Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

I am looking for a graphics card for when I update my system. I am not a serious gamer. I was thinking around the £30 mark.

Alan.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

Hello, Alan... not a serious gamer, or not a gamer at all? I used to have a Radeon 7000, which you'd easily pick up for under £30 these days. It was a nice little card, very reliable and didn't require a fan so it was silent in use (oh, those were the days :rolleyes: ). However, it used to struggle to handle stuff like Counter Strike, The Sims, etc... Even a non-serious gamer would be frustrated by a Radeon 7000, but for browsing the web, sending emails, using Word or Excel, etc... then I'm sure it would be fine.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

How about this one



http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=62209

Or This one.
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=65093

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

Blimey, forget my posts, those cards Bud linked to are way better. And they're cheap as chips too :tu:

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

The second one looks like what I am looking for.

Cheers,

Alan.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

I have a 256 mb 9600 and it runs all the latest games at 1024x768 no probs at all!
Use the latest Omega drivers to get the best out of it. Linky below.



http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=F...&dwn_cat_id=14

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

These are very good cards;

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=54890

Can play all current games in 1024X768 and this one has 256MB, very good buy.

Plus this one is cheaper and not much performance decrease (128MB RAM rather than 256MB) also comes with a fan for overclocking.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=59427

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

http://www.videocardshop.co.uk/ do some very cheap n' cheerfull cards - most of which aren't up to running modern games, but are good enough for basic office work and such.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

One other thing, is this a basic card for a new build (on AGP 2.0 or 3.0, 4x or 8x).

If it's to revive an older setup, then you may be looking at AGP 1.0 (1x/2x at 3.3V), which some modern cards will not support, or possibly even a PCI.

In case some smart alec suggests PCI Express, I'll mention that too, though putting a new PCI-E motherboard in with the lowest of the low graphics in PCI-E would be a very poor choice.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

For PCI-E he will need a new cpu anyway as there only available for AMD64 and soc 754 semprons and lga755 intel chips

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

It is for a new build, I was looking to upgrade my Athlon 1800+ machine with a Sempron 3000+ on a ASUS K8N Deluxe NF3 motherboard which has 8x AGP.

Alan.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
do you have any of these parts yet? seriously nooooooooooooooo
if your buying a K8 board buy a 64 bit chip please Im begging you do not make this kinda mistake :LOL:

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

Agreed I shall highlight Zingles main professional remarks there.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

I do not know a lot about the 64 bit chip. Will it run faster than the std (32 bit?) chip when running XP?

Alan.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

it will blow it away mate :D

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

it will batter into submission any sempron.

My advice to you would be go for a 939 board not a soc 754. If your dead set on agp you should be able to find a nforce 3 chipset.
If your flexable on that go for a pci e mobo and gfx.If its a new build spend the highest limit. Give us an idea of total funds and we can have a look


3000 venice 939 £82
basic asus nforce 4 pci-e £76
x800 £146

prices from overclockers

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

I will not be building for a few weeks yet. I will post what I propose to buy & then you guys can put me right!

Cheers for the help so far.

Alan.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

just me but ask zing the tech freak when you are ready :D

:Yikes: did i just compliment someone

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

:Yikes:

:Sprint:

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

Unconvinced by "64 bit" - YET! - and I say this with an Intel P4 640 (64 bit, hyperthreading, 2Mb cahe) on my desk.

At the moment, the best that can be said of most "64 bit" processors, is that they are 64 bit ready - since while I belive you can get 64 bit windows, ther is very little 64 bit software.

If you worry about 64 bit, maybe you should also worry about dual core.

Sure, the "full" Athlon 64's are better than the Sempron 64's - as they have more cache.
64 bitness is not a factor, unless you plan to upgrade to 64 bit windows during the lifetime of the machine - a lifetime which is already set to see another AMD socket specification.


I am convinced, not of any real merit in PCI-E over AGP 8x, but that the switchover has been forced to the point where you would not want to be looking for an AGP card upgrade in a year or two's time. Until the AMD motherboards with PCI-E came out, I though it was going to end up as an Intel versus AMD thing.

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

It is a factor when the 64-bit chips (AMD ones, anyway) outperform 32-bit ones by a large margin, even in 32-bit mode.

64-bit-ness is also a factor for me because I use Linux. 64-bit builds are available just as easily as 32-bit versions, and offer decent performance benefits.

And what socket change, out of interest? I haven't read anything that suggests that AMD are going to ditch Socket 939 any time soon...

Re: Cheap & Cheerful Graphics Card
 

Theres the soc M2 on its way but afaik its not gonna replace 939 Till next year


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05...t_m2_desktops/

main addition is support for ddr2,Personally I think they should have waited for ddr3
__________________

AMD64 chips out perform EMT64 I believe by some ways. Also they totally batter 32 bit chips all comers wether there running 64 bit windows or apps or not