Budget Graphics Card Advice - £30ish

[amjedm]

Colleague's dad needs a cheapo graphics card (AGP) as the onboard graphics aren't up to much.

Spec - Pentium 4 (not sure of speed), 256 or 512 RAM.

The game he plays is Flight Simulator (I think one of the older ones).

From what the blurb on the game box states -

card needs to support Direct X 9,
min of 32 RAM,
support Hardware Transformation & Lighting

Any idea what card I should recommend?

Thank you in advance.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This card may do the trick:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=635029

Reviews of similiar cards:

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/inno3d_geforce_6200a/

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Revie...200A/index.htm

[cotswoldcs]

I recently purchased an XFX 6600GT 128Mb AGP card from Scan for £30 + VAT (on todayonly). The 6600 would be a huge improvement over a 6200 card.

Consider that the later version of Flight Simulator would certainly be too much for that 6200 and it makes spending a little extra more worthwhile.

[amjedm]

Hello again

Don't seem to be many AGP nVidia cards around at the moment, could you advise what ATI card to would be in a similar league to the 6600/6800?

Looking to spend up to £40 (now, I think).

Thanks.

[Pob255]

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
A little over.
Have you considered looking at ebay and the selling section of this forum?

ati cards x800 or x1600 I think
Right on the button, well 58p over
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

I've got an old 6800LE 128mb AGP I could sell you

[jackvdbuk]

look for a 9800pro on ebay, they really are amazing cards, very capable (first card i ever had, ahhhh the memories lol)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
A little over.
Have you considered looking at ebay and the selling section of this forum?

ati cards x800 or x1600 I think
Right on the button, well 58p over
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

I've got an old 6800LE 128mb AGP I could sell you

I remember the 6800LE and 6800XT very well - I had two that unlocked to 12 and 16 pipelines respectively!! A very nice performance boost indeed!!

[Pob255]

Yep, I couldn't fully unlock all the pipes, one pair was bad so 14?
Basically I use riva tuner, could unlock all 4 vertex units but only 5 of the 6 pixel units
Could also cope with small overclocks. (I never really pushed the OC on this)
It's a leadtek card, which has a humungus lump of copper for a heat sink, it's basically the same one they used on there later 6800GT but with a smaller fan (the eairly 6800GT just used the Ultra cooler, which was the same, but the copperfins are double height and so was the fan)

I was pondering with the idea of mounting a larger 60mm to see what it could do, but the 128mb memory was more a limiting factor on newer games.
It did however beat the pants off my Ati 9700Pro 128mb

[amjedm]

I missed this thread as the emails weren't getting through. Will pass on details/offers to my colleague and see what he says.

Thank you all.

[DanceswithUnix]

Unfortunately the sweet spot for AGP seems to be the 7600GS but that is outside your price range.

You don't say how much he is struggling with on-board graphics. Is he able to run the software, but it is a little slow?

The reason I ask is that the 6200A card recommended by Cat at the top of the list will be, whilst not a gamers graphics card, still massively better than any onboard graphics. If he just wants a doubling in performance, then that card has at least that much.

Best deal I can find is actually on Amazon, with free delivery.

here for just under 40 quid. Only 2 in stock at time of posting though.

[Pob255]

not a bad card for 40quid

I'm really puzzled by that amazon "Perfect Partner"

Buy this item with Inno3D GeForce 7300LE 256MB DDR2 PCIE Graphics Card - I-7300LE-G4E3 by Inno3D today!

Why the heck you you want to buy a PCI-e graphics card to go with your AGP card? ? ?

[DanceswithUnix]

Perhaps most of their customers start off buying the wrong type of card?