[RichardB1]

Hi Peeps, hope I can ask for buying advice in here. I've got a pretty woeful GeForce 64mb card in my PC at the moment (Athlon XP 1800, 256mb ram, win 2k). I don't use it a great deal for games, as the spec might suggest, but I'd like to get a new graphics card to give it a bit more 'ooomph'!

I'm stumped as to that to go for though. I don't want to spend a fortune (£50 or so, approx US$90) and can see plenty choice, but really don't know what would be best for that sort of cash. Can anyone recommend anything?

I've seen this baby, for example, which I'm sure would be a bit improvement on what I have but can't find any decent reviews of it anywhere: GeForce FX5500 256MB.

I'm also not sure if I need to look for anything specific in the card or not eg. anything that it needs to be compatible with my PC?

Thanks in advance
Richard.

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Well the fx5500 would be about right for your PC, its pretty lacking in power, although if you upgrade the ram and the OS it would be a little better, it would play HL2 pretty well anyway. If you have an AGP 8x slot you are sorted just need to go get the card.

There are a few newer alternatives from this last gen of gfx card like the x700 or a 6600, or a little cheaper you have the 6200 and the x300-500. They are all DX-9 which is a good thing to have. You might be able to pick up a faster CPU if you are lucky the athlon xp cpus are becoming quite the commodity as people want to upgrade their pcs as the older athlons are still very good chips(even my old 1600 with a fx5200 played cs source reasonably).

[warriorscot]

Well the fx5500 would be about right for your PC, its pretty lacking in power, although if you upgrade the ram and the OS it would be a little better, it would play HL2 pretty well anyway. If you have an AGP 8x slot you are sorted just need to go get the card.

There are a few newer alternatives from this last gen of gfx card like the x700 or a 6600, or a little cheaper you have the 6200 and the x300-500. They are all DX-9 which is a good thing to have. You might be able to pick up a faster CPU if you are lucky the athlon xp cpus are becoming quite the commodity as people want to upgrade their pcs as the older athlons are still very good chips(even my old 1600 with a fx5200 played cs source reasonably).

[RichardB1]

Cheer mate - that's good to know and I'll have a look at those other cards you mention to see what sort of price I can get 'em for. I hadn't even thought about a CPU upgrade, but I really should do that too - a very quick look shows an Athlon XP 2600 for £50 or so, so it's certainly a cheap enough option to look at too

[RichardB1]

Hi again, still trying to make my mind up! I am pondering between one of these:

6200

and a 9800XT with an Arctic cooler on it for a little bit more (second hand from a friend).

I really don't know how they compare though - the 9800XT is, I presume, better though its only 128mb compared with 256mb (and its second hand).

Can anyone offer any thoughts on the matter?

[warriorscot]

Not really if it had been a 256mb 9800xt then i would have said yes but 128 isnt very good i would say your friend is trying to do you out some money there(probably innocently doesnt no the diference mind you. But then again the 6200 isnt a great gamer(not bad just not great) you really need 256mb minimum though.