[crshoulta]

Hello and Thank you in advance for any help you may offer. I bought my boys a computer for Christmas from E-bay the computer was a refurbished computer and so far is working great. However many of the games my kids want to play they are unable to play because I need to upgrade the Graphics Card, however I don't have a clue as to where to begin? I want to make sure whichever one I get is compatible with their computer and it needs to be in the price range of $125-150.
I dont know if the following specs will help but here they are anyway. Thanks!

Dell Optiplex GX270
CPU Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.80GHz

CPU Speed 2.79 GHz

System RAM 1022.0 MB

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

Video Card Intel® 82865G Graphics Controller

Free Disk Space 211.6 GB

CDHL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4165B

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What are the games that they are trying to play? I found your PC here: http://support.dell....out.htm#1185194

It seems like you do have an AGP port for installing a new video card but it would not be very cost efficient to invest into an AGP card. AGP is an old dying technology and bottlenecks cards. It would be more cost efficient in the long run to get a PCI-E x16 card (that means you would have to get a new motherboard and basically start from scratch, new PC). If you really do not want to do that and go for a quick solution you can get an AGP card no problem, although this would not be a long term solution and will not last you that long.

Tom's Hardware makes a good guide for picking video cards and for some reason they still review AGP cards: http://www.tomshardw...gp_card_for_115

For your "$125-150" price range I would go for the Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP. You can find it here on Newegg: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102711

Edited by jackflash1991, 24 January 2008 - 08:12 PM.

[jackflash1991]

What are the games that they are trying to play? I found your PC here: http://support.dell....out.htm#1185194

It seems like you do have an AGP port for installing a new video card but it would not be very cost efficient to invest into an AGP card. AGP is an old dying technology and bottlenecks cards. It would be more cost efficient in the long run to get a PCI-E x16 card (that means you would have to get a new motherboard and basically start from scratch, new PC). If you really do not want to do that and go for a quick solution you can get an AGP card no problem, although this would not be a long term solution and will not last you that long.

Tom's Hardware makes a good guide for picking video cards and for some reason they still review AGP cards: http://www.tomshardw...gp_card_for_115

For your "$125-150" price range I would go for the Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP. You can find it here on Newegg: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102711

Edited by jackflash1991, 24 January 2008 - 08:12 PM.