Alright I'm trying to decide on a video card to replace the old one (radeon 9600) that I have tucked in this clunker. So far I've found 5 that are within my price range, but I'm a newb with hardware so I'd like to hear someone else's opinion before I buy one.

 

Here are the five:

 

GeForce 9400 GT - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130389

 

GeForce 9500 GT - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130395

 

GeForce 9600 GSO - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150340

 

Radeon HD 4650 PCI - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102829

 

Radeon HD 4670 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127415

 

 

 

Not looking to spend over $80, as I'm not planning on turning this computer into a hardcore gaming machine, I just want something that can run older games at high settings (Medieval:TW2, GTA:SA, Prince of Persia, etc), and maybe newer games on low settings.

 

Besides, if in the future I do decide to turn this pc into a beast, then I want a card that is relatively cheap so that I can just throw it in another machine without a second thought.

 

 

 

Cheers.

9600GSO is the best choice. 9400GT/9500GT are both high budget cards, terrible for actual games. I don't have much experience with Radeon hardware so I'd wait for someone like OldJoe to tell you about the 4650/4670.

Toss a coin, 9600gso and 4670 perform about the same. 4670 doesn't require a pci-e cable tho and is quite small, which can be nice.

 

Neither is very power hungry, but i hope you've checked your PSU - otherwise post it's specs here.

 

And i assume you got a new motherboard? Since Radeon 9600 came in AGP.

 

 

 

I've got a 4670 (sapphire 512mb), i'm not a huge gamer but i've played Assassins Creed/Hitman blood money/Testdrive unlimited etc on high/highest settings without a problem (DX9).

 

Here you have two tests between the two cards (some months back, so drivers aren't the latest ones): http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... n-review/1

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... q-review/1

Toss a coin, 9600gso and 4670 perform about the same. 4670 doesn't require a pci-e cable tho and is quite small, which can be nice.

 

Neither is very power hungry, but i hope you've checked your PSU - otherwise post it's specs here.

 

And i assume you got a new motherboard? Since Radeon 9600 came in AGP.

 

 

 

I've got a 4670 (sapphire 512mb), i'm not a huge gamer but i've played Assassins Creed/Hitman blood money/Testdrive unlimited etc on high/highest settings without a problem (DX9).

 

Here you have two tests between the two cards (some months back, so drivers aren't the latest ones): http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... n-review/1

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... q-review/1

 

 

 

I have no idea what my power supply is like, how exactly do I check that?

 

And as for the motherboard I thought I knew what it was but the box I have here is for my old PC, so I'm going to have to go into the BIOS and take a look.

 

 

 

And it's great to know that the 4670 can run those types of games, that is actually a step up from what I was expecting from a graphics card with such a low price tag.

Toss a coin, 9600gso and 4670 perform about the same. 4670 doesn't require a pci-e cable tho and is quite small, which can be nice.

 

Neither is very power hungry, but i hope you've checked your PSU - otherwise post it's specs here.

 

And i assume you got a new motherboard? Since Radeon 9600 came in AGP.

 

 

 

I've got a 4670 (sapphire 512mb), i'm not a huge gamer but i've played Assassins Creed/Hitman blood money/Testdrive unlimited etc on high/highest settings without a problem (DX9).

 

Here you have two tests between the two cards (some months back, so drivers aren't the latest ones): http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... n-review/1

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... q-review/1

 

 

 

Yeah I figured they were about the same, but some of the radeon's more budget card line up confuses me. :oops: I only really know the main lineups (like 3850/70, 4850/70)

Toss a coin, 9600gso and 4670 perform about the same. 4670 doesn't require a pci-e cable tho and is quite small, which can be nice.

 

Neither is very power hungry, but i hope you've checked your PSU - otherwise post it's specs here.

 

And i assume you got a new motherboard? Since Radeon 9600 came in AGP.

 

 

 

I've got a 4670 (sapphire 512mb), i'm not a huge gamer but i've played Assassins Creed/Hitman blood money/Testdrive unlimited etc on high/highest settings without a problem (DX9).

 

Here you have two tests between the two cards (some months back, so drivers aren't the latest ones): http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... n-review/1

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphi ... q-review/1

 

 

 

Yeah I figured they were about the same, but some of the radeon's more budget card line up confuses me. :oops: I only really know the main lineups (like 3850/70, 4850/70)

 

 

 

Pff the whole damn thing confuses the hell out of me.

 

 

 

And I've an ASUS P4B533 motherboard

 

specs here: http://computingondemand.com/?p=918

You've only got AGP/PCI slots so you won't be able to use any of those cards unless you got a new motherboard.

You've only got AGP/PCI slots so you won't be able to use any of those cards unless you got a new motherboard.

 

 

 

bugger

 

more money

Well, it's not really just a new motherboard. In all honesty you're pretty much looking at needing an entire new PC.

 

 

 

- A new motherboard means it won't have a P4 socket (chances are) so you'd need a new CPU

 

- A new motherboard would have DDR2 or DDR3 support, yours is chugging on DDR so you'd need new RAM

 

- New video card obviously for PCI-E.

Well, it's not really just a new motherboard. In all honesty you're pretty much looking at needing an entire new PC.

 

 

 

- A new motherboard means it won't have a P4 socket (chances are) so you'd need a new CPU

 

- A new motherboard would have DDR2 or DDR3 support, yours is chugging on DDR so you'd need new RAM

 

- New video card obviously for PCI-E.

 

 

 

Oh damn it all to hell. See? This is why old people hate computers. :(

 

 

 

Wait. Why would a new motherboard not be compatible with a P4?

 

I'd be fine with getting a new motherboard, video card and some more RAM, though.

Different pins is why. Standard usually for intel motherboards is either a LGA775 or LGA1366 (Which is Core2duo/quad and i7 respectively). Pentium 4 CPU's are a socket 478. Sadly I looked and there are no motherboards with a Socket 478 and a PCI-E slot.

Different pins is why. Standard usually for intel motherboards is either a LGA775 or LGA1366 (Which is Core2duo/quad and i7 respectively). Pentium 4 CPU's are a socket 478. Sadly I looked and there are no motherboards with a Socket 478 and a PCI-E slot.

 

 

 

I found one here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138079 but it runs with DDR2. So yea, it's looking like I'm going to have to do a bunch of upgrades to get my PC where I want it. Is it actually even feasible to just upgrade the motherboard, RAM, and video card? Or should I be looking at other things as well; keep in mind though I don't have the sort of money to either do a full upgrade of all my components or buy a new PC. Bare bones.

 

 

 

Sorry for annoying you Nadril :P

Different pins is why. Standard usually for intel motherboards is either a LGA775 or LGA1366 (Which is Core2duo/quad and i7 respectively). Pentium 4 CPU's are a socket 478. Sadly I looked and there are no motherboards with a Socket 478 and a PCI-E slot.

 

 

 

I found one here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138079 but it runs with DDR2. So yea, it's looking like I'm going to have to do a bunch of upgrades to get my PC where I want it. Is it actually even feasible to just upgrade the motherboard, RAM, and video card? Or should I be looking at other things as well; keep in mind though I don't have the sort of money to either do a full upgrade of all my components or buy a new PC. Bare bones.

 

 

 

Sorry for annoying you Nadril :P

 

 

 

Odd, I looked around and couldn't find a thing. I probably accidentally looked for PCI-E 2.0.

 

 

 

I guess it would be feasible to do that. However I'd personally be wary about spending that sort of money only to stick with the same, totally outdated, pentium 4 socket. No doubt your P4 would really hold you back, especially with a 9600GSO or 4670. You would probably also have to get an IDE to SATA converter (such as This) so that your hard drive would work. This is all given that your PSU has enough juice, of course, which I'm not sure what you'd have for an older machine.

Cards are available in AGP, but the situation for drivers is a little shaky.

 

An AGP version of the ATI HD4650 is avaialble, but the only drivers are the ones from Diamond, as ATI do not officially support the 4000 series in AGP (and the HD2000/3000 series only by "hotfix" drivers that come out a little later than the main ones).

 

 

 

For a motherboard upgrade, I would not recommend trying to hang on to a S478 CPU, there are a couple of boards that would take S478 and have PCI-E, but you'd still have to replace the memory with DDR2.

 

 

 

Remember, you cannot compare current Core 2 based CPUs (and even the "Pentium E1000" series is core 2 based, just a bit thin on cache), on a clock for clock basis with the old P4's, it would be like comparing a 486 with a Pentium.

Radeon 4670 is a great card, I've got this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125277

 

 

 

Doesn't get hot, can't hear it, and ATI's Catalyst drive has an effective auto-overclock feature. Some people complain that they can hear noise, but I personally haven't heard a thing. PCI-E 2.0 is fully backwards compatible to 1.1 and 1.0, with little hit on the performance. Most cards can't even utilize the extra bandwidth anyway. Also that specific model doesn't require it to be hooked up to the PSU, it's fully powered from the motherboard.

 

 

 

If you're not on 64bit, don't waste all the RAM on just graphics and buy this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125244 It's exactly the same, just less RAM. Powered through the mboard, etc.

 

 

 

Never been a big Nvidia fan, so I can't comment on the other cards.