A good graphics ( 3D ) card ?
 

Hello friends,
I am thinking to upgrade my system graphics capability by adding a 3d card to my pc. There are alot of companies making graphics card and I am consfused in all of them, from which to buy and which will be more suitable for me. I will choose to buy a medium sized and quality card, not too high nor too low.

So any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all,
John Wright.

There are 3 questions you must ask yourself


1 What type of card are you wanting to use? (agp or pci express)

2 Do you want a geforce or a readeon card? (in my opinon this comes dopwn to personaly choice)

3 Whats your budget?


I have a pci express geforce 6600 with 256 mb of memory, I got it about a year ago for £130 ($260) and its work well for me

I know nothing about graphics cards.

Answer1 ( Asking again ) : What is the difference between the two ? OR these are the two types of cards compatible with two different kind of mother boards.. I mean the one type of card will not work on another type of motherboard ( just thought ) ?

Answer2 ( again asking ): What is the difference between the two ? There should be some difference... price different... quality difference.. etc.

Answer3: My budget is $100-$120, actually I want to start with a lower quality of card.

Another Question : I have heard that the already existed memory of RAM can be used for graphics card memory.. is it true ? if yes how is it possible ?


Thanks for your detailed answers.

Pci express and agp (acelerated graphics port)are the interfaces the computer uses to comunicate with the graphics card. they are not compatable with each other so pci express graphics cards are for pci express motherboards and vise versa.


Pci express was introduced about a year and a half ago.

Agp has been around for a few years now but its being replaced by pci express.

The best way to tell would be looking at the motherboard or looking in its manule

Readeon card are made by ati they are noramly better at direct x games (half-life2)

Geforce cards are made by nvidia they are noramlyy better at open gl games (doom 3)

imo most people would never notice the difference between them.

I had a little look on new egg (im in the uk so dont use them) and here are some choices for you

for agp http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=48

for pci express
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=48

It told it for 75-100 $ so theres 20 left over for shipping.

Intergerted graphics (when you have a graphics card on your motherboard) do this.

There are also the geforce 6200 pci express versions have turbo chache, and this works the smae way taking some of your pc ram to use for graphics.



So to some it all up your really need to find out if you have agp or pci express[/quote]

Thanks alot again for answering in very detail to my all questions. You really helped me out in this issue. I will check the sites you posted as well as some other to compare the prices.

Thanks once again.

Its no problem

Im a bit of a harware geek

The geforce 6600 GT is a very good card amongst the cheaper ones. I am planning to buy this one. Right now I am on onbard graphics :(