Any graphic cards meant to be more useful?

[kagebushin93]

I just bought a low-end(real low) cpu with these specs
pentium 4 HT 3.0 GHZ LGA775
1GB DDR
Nvidia FX5700
120GB SATA HD
the graphic card kind of sux..which in youtube said that it can perform at 70fps on quake 4 highest setting dunno if its true or not...
But i gonna stick with this stupid pc 4 a few years so i gonna at least upgrade my graphic card...so which one do u think is better?
I still dunno if its agp or pci-e so pls recommend a card suitable to my pc stats..

[Duesco]

We kinda need to know if it's PCI-E or AGP first, and also your budget.

[wyz135]

We kinda need to know if it's PCI-E or AGP first, and also your budget.

all the FX series is AGP, if you wanna upgrade your graphic card and at a budget, get a GeForce 7600GS AGP or Radeon X1650PRO AGP, DX 9.0c support and can play all the games at low-medium settings at a decent frame rate (30-50 FPS)

[Radiator]

Don't get the 7600 GS or the X1650 Pro . Get a X1950 Pro AGP and you'll be fine for the next year or two . I'd suggest a HD 3850 , but that CPU would be a huge bottleneck .

[wyz135]

Don't get the 7600 GS or the X1650 Pro . Get a X1950 Pro AGP and you'll be fine for the next year or two . I'd suggest a HD 3850 , but that CPU would be a huge bottleneck .

ya, a X1950PRO or a 7900GS AGP would be great. A HD3850 AGP is too expensive here in Singapore, it cost S$300+, not worth it

[Bruno Rocha]

Between the ATI X1950 Pro and NV 7900 GS, buy the cheapest. :D

[-RK]

The 1950 will be the better card here.

[Radiator]

Yep... the X1950 Pro is better . And another thing... get more RAM . 1 GB is way too low for that thing .

[hdantman]

The x1900 series is the best possible bet. I have another PC running a 1900 xtx and it flies. The AGP version is nearly as fast.

I think for the first time, I might have to disagree with something Radiator says. I don't think you need much more RAM. 2GB would be nice, but depending on what you're doing, you should be ok. If it comes down to price, make sure that you keep a dual channel configuration, since you won't be able to get much faster ddr (3200 max). If you have 2 slots, upgrade to 2 1GB sticks (again, make sure they're the same). If you have four slots, you'll fly with 4 x 512MB modules (same model).

[Radiator]

For gaming , 1 GB is a very low amount... especially on a powerful card like an X1950 Pro .
Even I'm experiencing a RAM shortage in games... with my craptacular X1600 Pro .

[-RK]

eh... I still get RAM shortages with a single gig on an oc'd athlon64 3200.
It depends on the game more than anything - unless you're running vista.

And what the hell are you talking about with 4x512 being faster than 2x1gb?
It won't go over 128 bit no matter how many sticks you throw in it.

[Radiator]

Well... Hellgate : London shouldn't be such a RAM-heavy game ... even though , I'm getting RAM shortages there... I didn't even get a shortage of RAM in Crysis at medium settings ... however I did get a lousy framerate :P .

[hdantman]

RK--read carefully. I didn't say running 4x512 was faster, though depending on your timings, it can be. Newer 1GB modules with great timings are in good supply, but if he's already got 2 512 sticks, why spend the extra money when upgrading to a new ddr2/ddr3 rig eventually is perhaps a foregone conclusion?

I'm well aware that lower latency/2T does not necessarily outperform higher latency/1T, but it all depends on budget. The point is, 2GB is enough for just about anything his system will be playing, and with a little msconfig toying, he can get his RAM usage down pretty low (I've got a tweaked performance xp that uses 87MB to run), removing the need for tremendous amounts of RAM. I have 4GB--but I'm running Vista. I never exceeded 2GB with XP. Never needed to. 1GB ran great for anything my 2.66Ghz, PC3200, 6800 GT could handle--except stupid WOW. Game is a memory hog.