Looking for a new video card for my birthday

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

Just wanna play

Posts: 32   +0
My birthday is coming up next month and i love playing Guild wars on my downstairs PC the only problem is i have limited usage of that computer so i decided id buy a new video card for my upstairs pc.

I like to play MMOs seriously so im not a frugal gamer.

I have a budget of about 50-100 dollars.


cpu-1466.jpg



mainboard.jpg


memory-1466.jpg


And im not sure of what my power level is but theres a switch underneath where you plug in the tower which is switched to 115 so im guessing 115watts?


Im also from the united states.


I was thinkin of getting this card
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8154257
Would it be compatible?

I checked my device manager for the current video card that i have in and it says its in a PCI bus, i was guessing that this is important for you all to know.
 
Looks to me like you have an AGP slot according to your 2nd screen shot. Take the side of your case off to make sure, there will be some white slots, and then above them one of slightly larger size that is *probably* brown. If you have that, then its AGP. If you have an AGP slot then your possibilities are a little more broad than if you only have regular PCI.

The card you linked to is PCIe, which is different from regular PCI (so it won't work, don't buy it) which you almost certainly have. Regular PCI is those white slots below the brown AGP.

The 115 you see is 115 Volts, what your wall outlet supplies. The other option is 230, which you don't want to have that flipped to. It is there so the power supply can be used in countries that use 230V.
 
Ah Im hesitant to take the case off because im afraid of damaging anything but ill get on that and post after i do, My computer has these weird like switches you pullback to pull the case off

Ok well i googled the model of the computer i have (Compaq 5000 series) and got the basic stats for it and found out that it comes with an an APG slot
(Video Output Interface: AGP)
but the power level i still don't know and theres no sticker on my computer other than the one that was one the side which tells what it came with

So do i want something like this?http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4087780
It says 300watts but i don't know the power i have

Ok i opened up my PC, which for me was sliding off a side panel, and found that i have three of the white slots and a brown slot, so i have 3 PCI slots and an APG slot if im correct
Also inside of my PC was the power rating....It said "Max output 250W"
 
All the newer video cards require at least 450 watt power supply.

At this point I'm going to say stick with the downstairs PC. Your budget against your need for a new video card capable of handling a MMORG and a new quality power source don't add up.

But if you want to save $138.00 then you may like what you get

Video Card $75.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131070

Power Supply $63.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104954

Or for $184.00 you'll probably like what you get

Video Card $121.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102718

Power Supply $63.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104954
 
8x cards will work in your 4x slot. Where you get into something interesting is when you try to decide whether or not you are wasting money by getting a card faster than your processor can handle.
 
I'd recommend this video card paired with this PSU. They're both good quality products and with them you will be able to run all the MMOs you play quite easily with most\all of the effects turned up to maximum.
 
You have an old computer. Back in the day it was a pretty good computer but now all it's really any good for is web browsing. Even with a very expensive (very fast) video card your computer may not be strong enough to play recent games at medium screen resolutions and medium quality settings with greater than 30 frames per second which can quickly become boring/old if you already own an XBox or a PS2.

There are much better video cards then have been presented in this thread. The problems are three fold.

1) You don't have the budget for an expensive card and even if you did your computer may not (probably will not) be fast enough to power the card to it's full potential.

2) Under powered video cards don't produce frame rates like they would when powered by a newer computer. Low frame rates produce video lag.

3) Any video card you buy for your current computer will not work in any new computer you build/buy in the future because the AGP connector your new video card must have to work with your old computer isn't compatible with the PCI-E slot a new computer will have.
 
Yeah, your PC is ancient. Your CPU was replaced by Athlon 64 in 2004, and Athlon 64s have now been replaced by Phenom. I believe Athlon XPs went out of production in... 2005?
 
Yeah that'd do, but I'd recommend getting a 6200 instead. Much better performance and it'd still work with your current PSU.
 
That item's deactivated but I don't reckon it's more than $500. For that much, you could customize this system at iBuyPower and just add in an 8600GT. You could also save a few bucks on the keyboard and mouse if you already have them. All in all, it'd be a much better system than the one you posted about.
 
Cinder whats the required power supply for that card?
Sadly i only have a 250watt supply rightnow.

I just looked through some of the reveiws and found out it requires atleast a 350watt power supply

Any other suggestions?
The system req for the game is

Required System Specs:
Windows XP/2000/ME/98
800 MHz Pentium III or equivalent
256 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 or 4 MX with 32MB of video memory
500 MB hard drive space
Internet connection
DirectX 8.0

Recommended System Specs:
Windows XP/2000/ME/98
Pentium III 1GHz or equivalent
512 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9000 or GeForce 4 Ti Series with 64MB of video memory
500 MB free hard drive space
Internet connection

For anyone still looking at this thread I went with an Geforce FX 5500.
Its on order from a site and should be here in about 3-4 days.
One thing im concerned about though is the AGP slot i have.
It seems kind of small...Do they make them in diffrent sizes?
 
They're sized differently for different voltages. Most AGP cards today are also keyed so they can fit in different types of slots.
 
I would go with the FX5500 too, my pc that has it has only a 300w psu. I wouldn't go with the 9600 pro, I bought one and it was such a pain to install(meaning I didn't successfully install it.) The FX5500 is good bang for the buck for old pcs, I could play Quake 4 on my old 1.9GHz Pentium 4 on medium.
 
My research told me that the FX5500 could run guild wars fairly well so i bought one.
I just carefully cracked open my PC case and looked at the PCI and AGP slots again.
The AGP slot was 3 inches long.

Ok i really hope people are still lookin at this topic.
I got the card yesterday from fedex disabled my onboard card opened my case put in the new card went to the nvidia site and got the latest driver. Installed the driver and rebooted. But i can't play games. I can watch movies and things in real player but i can't play any games. I tried to play Guild wars and i just got a screen with a bunch of colored lines moving around it and no game. I started a support ticket on the Guild wars support site and the asked me to run a DXDiag test which i did and then sent them but they haven't responded. I thought maybe it was just guild wars. So i downloaded a Call of duty demo and tried to play that. but it gave me a black screen and froze my computer so i had to turn it off with the ower button. I started another topic about this but no one has responded and i also started a topic on the Nvidia forums.

Any suggestions/soloutions?

I also re-ran that Cpu-z program and found that the AGP slot doesn't say its 2.0 anymore but 3.0
 
Go to guru3d.com and get an older driver. Maybe something in the 60s or 70s. Uninstall your current driver, then reboot and install the one you just downloaded, reboot. Then try and play a game, if the same stuff happens AND you passed the DirectX tests then I'd say your card is no good.
 
No good as in it won't work or as in it was DOA?

Installled one in the 60s rebooted PC and got a please update drivers message. Tried to run Guild wars. Game showed for about 6 secodns then went back to the lines
 
No good as in DOA. What program gave you the update drivers message. The reason I suggested a driver that old is its still one that was made after the FX cards came out, and if there was something wrong with the new driver it would be far enough away to probably not be affected.

You could try one of the more up to date drivers, I'd just stay away from the very new ones for this testing. The problem sounds like either corrupted video drivers or a broken card. But you still didn't mention if your dxdiag test passes or fails, that could be the key here.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

B
What happened to my computer?
Replies
7
Views
643
captaincranky
captaincranky
JohnnieWalker
What are some minimum specs for my new notebook needs?
Replies
0
Views
654
JohnnieWalker
JohnnieWalker
K
How to Unlock a SIM Card for Use on a Different Network?
Replies
1
Views
509
korystoltenberg
K

Latest posts

Back