I need help upgrading mi dell dimension 3000's graphics

[jeremyneedshelp]

can anyone help me i want to upgrade my graphics so it can play games like the sims 2, dawn of war but my dell 3000's graphics are absolutly terrible .
Anyone know a good card that doesnt cost to much cheers.

 

[KingCody]

Hi jeremy and welcome to techspot

there isn't much you can do graphics wise on that machine.

good graphics cards come in PCI-Express (newer) or AGP (older). your Dimension3000 doesn't have either, it only has standard PCI slots.

you can get a PCI graphics card, but it will never be very good. even if the card itself has good specs it will always be severely limited by the slow and bandwidth starved PCI bus.

however... graphics don't get much worse than Intel integrated graphics (like dells use), so even a PCI graphics card would be a significant improvement.

as far as I know, the best PCI graphics card is the geforce 6200

while that card is cheap and may allow you to play certain games. it will only allow you to play on low settings. if you want to get into gaming, you should consider a computer upgrade. if you're budget is really tight, you may be able to get away with upgrading the mobo and video card and reusing the rest.

good luck

 

[jeremyneedshelp]

hey thanks anyway i think ill just get a job ( im still at school) and save up for an alienware thanks for your help

 

[KingCody]

well getting a job is never a bad thing

but you could still get this $30 geforce 6200 which will still be 10 times better than your integrated graphics. it will hold you over until you can get a complete upgrade.

I wouldn't recommend buying another prebuilt OEM computer. they are either made with cheap parts, or they cost too much. have you considered building yourself? or having a computer shop build one for you? you can re use your CD/DVD drives, hard drive, monitor, keyboard, and mouse from your Dell. you would just need to buy a new case, motherboard, CPU, and PSU. even a socket-A system would run circles around the machine you're using. just something else to consider.