What graphics card?

Hi group,

I am looking to purchase a new graphics card with a budget of approx £45.00
and a card that is 64 MB or 128MB.
I currently have a 32MB ATI Xpert 2000 Pro card, and my motherboard can take
up to AGP 4X speed.

I am looking for a card that will suit my needs for playing games such as
GTA: Vice City: Half Life 2, and has good performance on all other games.

I have been looking around the range of Nvidia FX and MX 4 Series and have
read conflicting reviews about the two cards being good/bad/etc.. and am
wondering if you can hele me...

It must be AGP 4X and £40.00 or lower, 64 or 128MB or lower.

Can you reccomend please? I am in the UK so am looking for some links to UK
websites where I can buy a good card at a good price.

Thanks,
JP

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 00:46:01 +0100, "JP" <jp DeleteThis @jp.com> wrote:

 >Hi group,
 >
 >I am looking to purchase a new graphics card with a budget of approx £45.00
 >and a card that is 64 MB or 128MB.
 >I currently have a 32MB ATI Xpert 2000 Pro card, and my motherboard can take
 >up to AGP 4X speed.
 >
 >I am looking for a card that will suit my needs for playing games such as
 >GTA: Vice City: Half Life 2, and has good performance on all other games.

Then increase the budget. If cheap cards provided "good performance on
all other games", why would anyone pay more?

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to pay a lot for a video card, but
don't kid yourself about it, more than any other part the increase in
performance climbs related to cost, particularly in the sub-$200 (USD)
range.

Your motherboard is not limited to 4X speed cards, only RUNNING them at
4X. yesterday S.Heenan posted a link to a Tom's Hardware comparision
which should be very useful... keep in mind that those are average
framerates and that they'll dip lower in more complicated scenes so you'd
want a card that (almost) always can maintain about 60FPS to offset the
occasional framerate dips, if not even higher.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-03.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-03.html</a>

 >I have been looking around the range of Nvidia FX and MX 4 Series and have
 >read conflicting reviews about the two cards being good/bad/etc.. and am
 >wondering if you can hele me...

Both of those are quite a bit faster than your present card, a huge
increase in performance, but then spending a little more would again be a
large increase in performance over either of those cards. Just trying to
emphasize that you'd be starting out with a card that can't even play
today's newer games well, nevermind tomorrows'.

An FX5200 is faster than an MX 4 series, enough so that if it costs more
it's still worthwhile.


 >It must be AGP 4X and £40.00 or lower, 64 or 128MB or lower.

Hmmm. Previously the limit was £45, now 40 or lower. If my conversion is
correct, that's about $73USD, but, the price of hardware in your local may
be higher, you may not be able to get as much for the equivalent of $73
USD. I suggest seeking a new or used Geforce 4 Ti4200 and overclocking it
a bit, else raising the budget. If you really just want a low-cost new
card then consider an FX5200 or Radeon 9600SE, though both are slower than
the GF4TI4200. This is considering typical "sale" prices... if you were
to encounter an expectionally good sale it could be worthwhile to jump on
it, even if you ended up spending an extra £15<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->