need graphics card advice (buying)

[William sewell]

Hi, first off I really don't know much about graphics cards. I recently got a new computer (Dell Dimension 3100), but want to buy a new graphics card for it. The current one I have is Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family. Although that might not be a graphics card and I was looking at the wrong thing. It has an Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz processor, if you needed to know that. tell me if there is anything else yo uwant to know. The main games I play are battlefield 2/1942, world of warcraft, guildwars, CSS, Halo, so i would want on ethat made those look good. I was hoping to pay less than £200 for it, but if it is a really good deal i'll pay more. Tell me if you want to know anything else

Thanks, will

[aphex]

Get a 7800GT think they are slightly over £200 now, make sure the Dell PSU is upto it though...:s

[William sewell]

thanks, but how do i find out if the PSU is up to it?

[herulach]

Im pretty certain it wont be, dell tend to ship, how should i put it, 'adequate' supplies with their machines. Id reccomend something like a Tagan 480W, or one of the FSP zens.

[William sewell]

ok thanks, so seing as i need to get one of them aswell, can you recomend a card that costs about £100, or the best one I can get that can use the PSU i already have.

[herulach]

I assume youre on AGP? (if the systems more than six months old it will be) If so the best card youll get at that price either a second hand 6800GT/Ultra, or something along the lines of an x800GTO. Id go the second hand oute myself. If youre going new, then for 200 quid (ish, prob more like 220) id get an AGP 6800GS, manufacturer doesnt matter really, and then either of the psus i mentioned before. You might manage a 6800 on your current power supply, but i wouldnt trust it for too long.

[William sewell]

Thanks, I don'y know if I'm on AGP, but my dad bought the computer very recently, so I presume it's pretty new. If I were to get a second hand one, say from E-Bay or something, is it likely to be damaged (computer chips always seem quite fragile to me). Could you also tell me some good new cards, for £100 (maybe a bit over) aswell, thanks very much

[William sewell]

oh right sorry, didn't realise the x800GTO would come in at around £100 new...I may go for that as I am not sure I'd trust getting a second hand one.

[William sewell]

I found it has 2 PCI slots and 1 PCI Express slot, so from what I've told you would it be able to cope with This card you recomended - tell me if you wanna know more about the computer..

[herulach]

Youre still looking at a 6800GS for about 125 quid, or an x800GTO. If you can strethc the extra 40 quid, then this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=280378
will be the best youll get, as you can unlock the extra pipes (its basically an x850 with the extra stuff disabled in software)

[nichomach]

The 3100 has a PCI-E x1 slot, and consequently is NOT upgradeable with a PCI-E graphics card - well, aside from a Matrox G550, which wouldn't help you very much; you'd need a PCI-E x16 slot. Sorry, but that base unit isn't one that you can do a lot with. You could upgrade with a PCI graphics card, but that limits you to cards that are at least a couple of generations old and are the low to mid-end versions of those. Certainly I'd hesitate before saying that anything like that'd handle BF2 or CSS. It's really NOT a gaming PC.

edit: About the best I could find is THIS

[herulach]

Ah right, silly me not thinking of integrated graphics.

[nichomach]

Nah, we just tend to assume that no-one'd ship a machine without any slot for a graphics card, and forget that Mikey Dell is out there...