Graphics Card

[leftcross]

i'm looking to get a decent graphics card to play games with but im not sure what is what. the last time i bought one on the uk was about five years ago and i got a GEForce 2.

i'm presuming you can get copies of good cards in thailand, but which ones are the best? does anyone have any suggestions/prices?

[Tywais]

A lot will depend on how much you are willing to spend. Prices can vary from 2-3K to 20-30K. I have an ASUS GeForce EN6600GT/Silentcer/HTD/256MB and it cost me about 8K and have not found a game it couldn't handle perfectly. However don't forget the CPU and memory, they will have a large say in how well games will play.

Do you have an AGP card slot only or PCI-express also?

Edited June 5, 2006 by tywais

[The Coder]

GeForce 2, LOL welcome to the 21st century. First you have to know if your motherboard slot is because there are two types: AGP (old) or PCI Express (new).

For AGP, I haven't been following for a while, but for PCI Expresss definitely accept nothing less than the nVidia GeForce 7600GT 256MB. It is a very strong card, great performer and <5000 baht. If you care about value and/or performance, this is the card you want.

You can look at benchmark comparisons of about any card on tomshardware.com. Always base your decision on the benchmarks, not model number or amount of memory because those can be very misleading because the manufacturers are more than happy to slap a fancy name and lots of memory on a dog slow card.

[Ian_B]

For 3d games on PC right now I recommed PCI Express and a GeForce 7600GT card as a minimum

I can still play all my games at highest res and detail

However remember that once the DirectX 10 cards come out (along with Vista) that will drastically change

[leftcross]

i used to have an agp card and that used to be the way to go, but is the PCI Express thing better??? now i'm confused.. PCI used to be bad and agp was good, have they swapped?

the motherboard is quite new and i just put 512 ram in from pantip to add to the 128 from before.

i'm thinking about 5000 baht for a card and i like first person shooters mainly............

[ROFL]

i used to have an agp card and that used to be the way to go, but is the PCI Express thing better??? now i'm confused.. PCI used to be bad and agp was good, have they swapped?

the motherboard is quite new and i just put 512 ram in from pantip to add to the 128 from before.

i'm thinking about 5000 baht for a card and i like first person shooters mainly............

The above recomendatons are all good.

I would recomend that if you want to play current gen games you have at LEAST 1 gig of ram.

Not only will it help your gameplay but it will help with anything else you use your computer for.

Keeping up with vid cards is almost as frustrating as trying to keep up with all the new cell phones and digital cameras...every week there is a new one.

I wouldnt go nuts on a really expensive card right now because as was said above DX10 is coming and it should be within a year.

Just get a good mid range card with the min 256 memory and you should be able to have a good time playing most all the current titles.

What kind of games do you like to play?

[Firefoxx]

Actually, PCI never used to be bad. It was just not designed for graphics, but for general purpose use. AGP was for graphics-only, nothing else. PCI express is simply a new, faster general purpose interface that also has enough speed for graphics.

Your mainboard might be new, but there are still mainboards with AGP slots still being sold. Be sure to check your mainboard manual. It's fairly easy to see... mainboards with PCI express will have very small PCI slots (along with standard ones). You might want to consider a new mainboard if yours is still AGP.

ATI cards are also an option, with the X1600pro about equal in performance with the Nvidia 7600GT, and about the same price.

For high spec 3D games, 1GB is a minimum. 2GB is good, and 4GB is great. For the graphics card, 128MB is OK, while 256MB is great. 512MB is overkill.

[leftcross]

i've got an AGP slot on my motherboard, along with a few spare PCI slots.

i figured i would get a card for the AGP slot as that is the slot designated specifically for graphics cards. it seems some of you feel PCI may be better....

all this talk of 1gig of ram for playing games is making my head spin.

i used to play unreal tournament and quake 3 with my geforce 2 and 128mb and it ran so smooth!!!

guess technology has really advanced since i was into all this before!!!

thanks for the all recommendations though - it has given me some good info on which to base my choices.

[Firefoxx]

No, we don't feel PCI is better. It's PCI *express* that's better. Classic PCI, as I said, is for general purpose, and not for graphics. PCI express can be used for anything. They're two different things.

As for games running smooth... I think that quake 3 can run smooth on a Geforce 2, but only if you use really low resolution and low graphics settings. I used to have quake 3, and I had a decent graphics card. It would get very slow if I used my screen's normal resolution (1280x1024).

[leftcross]

so is PCI express better for using a graphics card than AGP, which is built only for graphics cards?

[Firefoxx]

PCI express is the replacement for AGP. Older mainboards have PCI slots and an AGP slot for the graphics. Newer mainboards have PCI slots, small PCI express slots for peripherals, and long PCI express slots for graphics.

PCI express is faster than AGP, so yes, it's better. You'll see that the majority of cards being sold now are PCI express, since nearly all new boards have PCI express slots, and not AGP slots.

[leftcross]

cheers, time to open her up and have a look then.....

[Tywais]

cheers, time to open her up and have a look then.....

If you are not sure just post the brand and model number of the mainboard. Or if you have the manual it will tell you.

[leftcross]

i havent got the manual unfortunately. i just had a look and i have one brown AGP slot, three long white PCI slots and then one much smaller brown slot below the PCI slots.

is this small brown slot the PCI express?

[Firefoxx]

PCI express will be white, just like PCI. Very very very few mainboards have both PCI express and AGP, and they'll be about the same length. The small brown slot is probably the CNR for a winmodem or an Asus proprietary slot.

You'll have to buy a new mainboard if you want to use PCI express cards.

[francois]

hi'

be careful if choose agp, 2 brands, the 2,4x and the 4,8x, they don't use the same voltage...

anyway, if you plan for a PCI express you'll have to change the MB and most of things attached to it, like ram

I'll second the nvidia 7600gt pci express, 256 mb

francois