Video Card Help

[Kishar]

Like it says. I'm in the market for a video card and haven't a clue what to get. How do I know if I have PCI or PCIe (express)? I'm pretty sure though I have PCI because I see nowhere in my system info where it says PCIe only PCI. O.K. now, all I can find is 256MB PCI cards I want 512, do they not make 512's in PCI or what?

My system isn't brand new but it's not that old: 1.67ghz AMD Athlon and I'm running 1.25 gigs of ram. Unfortunately it's a Presario.

Any suggestions...I'm no computer guy, I can add memory and install shit but thats about it. I'm dumb when it comes to all the mumbo jumbo.

If I had some weed I could figure this shit out, now I'm jonesin and I cant think right..lol!

[snowmayne]

You have PCI not PCI express.

How much money are you looking to spend?

Do you game?

[Kishar]

Originally Posted by snowmayne

You have PCI not PCI express.

How much money are you looking to spend?

Do you game?

Yes I game that is my main reason for getting a card because only thing I can really play is Quake 2 or Wolfenstein which are old games and with my ram and processor I know I can play newer games if I just upgrade my card.

I'm looking around $150 or less

I was looking at XFX GeForce 9600 GT XXX Video Card - FREE Call of Duty 4 PC Game, Alpha Dog Edition, 512MB DDR3, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, HDMI Support, Dual VGA Support PVT96GYDSU at TigerDirect.com

Because it comes with COD4 but after closer inspection I see it's PCIe...

[ki11a]

Do you not have AGP?

[Kishar]

Originally Posted by ki11a

Do you not have AGP?

Not sure, but isn't that like old technology? Like it's hard to find a good AGP card, right? AGP is the big brown plug on the MB , correct?

Sorry for the elementary questions I'm just trying to learn this shit..haha!

[ki11a]

Heres a pretty decent PCI card

Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H155F256EDNP Radeon X1550 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

[Štulic]

Although I know you don't want my advice but if I were you I would invest into a new mainboard with dual core pentium on it. They're already cheap as fuck and with like $450 you could have a brand new PC up and running including decent graphics, powerful enough to run your antique games and ready for the newer games.

[snapshot]

Originally Posted by Kishar

Not sure, but isn't that like old technology? Like it's hard to find a good AGP card, right? AGP is the big brown plug on the MB , correct?

Sorry for the elementary questions I'm just trying to learn this shit..haha!

PCI is older than AGP. If you don't have AGP, I'd be surprised, but you're right; it is the one brown plug on the motherboard. I can't remember if it's bigger or smaller though. I'll I know, really, is that it's brown and it's closer to the CPU than the PCI slots (unlike ISA slots, which are old as balls).

I haven't had experience with using PCI slots for video cards for about 10 years now, but with the advents of AGP, then PCI express, and now PCI express 2.0, and since my video card isn't as nice as I want it to be (8600GT PCI express), I can't imagine that a PCI video card would live up to any standards you might have. (That's just me though.)

BIOSTAR TFORCE TA780G M2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail 79.99 Mobo

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor Model ADO5200DOBOX - Retail 77.00 CPU

A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model ADQVE1A16K - Retail 46.99 Memory

ZOTAC ZT-88TES3P-FCP GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail 149.99 Video Card

SIGMA SHARK SP-635 635W ATX12V V2.01 Power Supply - Retail 89.99 Power Supply

Total 443.96

This is your basic top of the bottom of the line. What you're basically looking at here is upgradability from the standpoint of the CPU, Memory, and Graphics card. The motherboard supports DDR21066 ram, but the ram here is DDR2800. It will support a Phenom quad-core processor, but the CPU I've shown is dual core. The video card is a PCIe 2.0, but it's the bottom of the line, which is still years ahead of where you are and will be able to play the newest games at AL LEAST full medium settings. The power supply is required in case you want to go quad core, 4gig mem, and a massive video card.

But I would say that is how much you should be looking to spend. If you want to spend less, that won't be a problem if you're at all happy with your current rig. It may even be wise to get a top of the line last generation computer rather than a bottom of the line current gen--if you never feel like upgrading, that is. I feel like you'd be saving most on the motherboard, though. You might be able to find a cheaper video card on ebay or elsewhere for like 100 bucks (just make sure its NVIDIA 8-Series or equivalent).

Summation: Basic things you should keep an eye out for:

Motherboard: AM2(supports single dual core processors)
AM2+ (Supports quad core, dual core, and single core processors)
DDR2 (DDR2 800, last gen; DDR2 1066, current gen)
PCIe 16x (Last gen vid)
PCIx 16x 2.0 (Current Gen vid)

I don't know squat about Intel.

[InAJar]

Just get PCI. PCI express is a proprietary brand name thing. PCI just means that the device plugs into actual motherboard. How well your graphics card performs mainly depends on the little internal processor it uses. Plus, your main processor will make a big difference in performance too. When choosing video cards, mostly pay attention to the power of its processor.

[Štulic]

^ hehe but that's how the video cards are made and advertised, 128, 256, 512... it is the power of the processor in the graphics card, nothing else.

[Flamingnun]

Originally Posted by Štulic

if I were you I would invest into a new mainboard with dual core pentium on it. They're already cheap as fuck and with like $450 you could have a brand new PC up and running including decent graphics, powerful enough to run your antique games and ready for the newer games.

werd