Recommend Me a Graphics Card

[Maze]

Hello TIFers. I need your help.

 

My computer is five years old with a 2 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a crappy integrated graphics card.

 

I would like a new video card to run TF2 at higher settings without slowdown. My current graphics card is a ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 series (it's a chip).

 

Please recommend me a new video card.

 

Question: Will getting a new video card increase my FPS on TF2 running at high settings? My current GPU can run TF2 fine on lowest settings when tons of players aren't on screen. But when lots of players are on-screen it slows down a ton. Would a new video card solve this problem?

[Mil]

What exactly is your processor? (model)

You could pick up a 9600gt or 9800gt fairly cheap...less than $80, but there probably would be a bottleneck due to your computer being a bit old. But still, if you get a new computer later on, you can just swap out the video card. There are also some Ati cards that outperform these Nvidia cards (as these are a bit old too), but I haven't really been keeping up with the newer cards.

I have similar specs to you, with a 9800gt I bought for $80 and I can play TF2 on quite high settings.

[Dracion1]

A 9600GT will be fine for running TF2 on high settings. Before you go ahead and order it though, make sure your computer has a powerful enough power supply in it. A lot of prebuilt computers only supply enough power to run the stuff the manufacturer put inside them. If you start adding more things, like some of the newer power hungry graphics cards, you'll get some nasty problems if your computer doesn't get enough power to run properly. If it is prebuilt, just post the model and someone should be able to find out for you. And yes, having a better graphics card should help the stop the framerate from dropping when a lot of players are on screen. It will still drop slightly, but not as much.

 

Also, if you still want to play TF2 before you get a new graphics card, have a look at this thread on the steam forums. Makes everything look retro, but useful if you want to play :P

[Downfall]

If the computer is 5 years old it's pretty unlikely that it has PCI-express, which is the standard bus used nowadays, but not back then. You need to pick up a decent AGP graphics card. If you're unsure what bus you have, check using a hardware information application.

 

If you have AGP (the standard used with most pentium 4 computers) you cannot fit a 9600 or 9800 in your computer, it's like plugging a USB into an audio jack. I suggest an AGP ATI 4670 or anything in the 4000s series. That should give you great performance. :)

 

If you have any other questions just ask.

[Vidi]

If it's five years old and using a Pentium 4, all the graphics power in the world wouldn't help you much. A 2ghz Pentium 4 would be a massive bottleneck, as TF2 depends more on the CPU than graphics.

[Downfall]

If it's five years old and using a Pentium 4, all the graphics power in the world wouldn't help you much. A 2ghz Pentium 4 would be a massive bottleneck, as TF2 depends more on the CPU than graphics.

I personally at one stage a few years ago had a pentium 4 and made the move from Integrated graphics to an AGP card and it worked wonders for those smaller, less intensive games. Definitely a big difference! The Pentium 4 CPU itself would clearly be a bottleneck, but in most cases it will still be playable.

[Iamdan]

You should do alright with a 7600gt or something. You'll need an agp card as mentioned.

[Solartide]

You get the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161287 too.

[D. V. Devnull]

Given what I've read in this thread, I'm going to initially assume the person in need of the video card has AGP slots, and doesn't want to be doing harmful overclocking unnecessarily. :geek:

 

For which, I'm going to recommend the BFG Tech NVidia GeForce 7300 GT 512MB AGP card as the best option. I'm using one myself with a Dell Optiplex GX260R, and loving how it does RuneScape and many other games I like at reasonable resolutions such as 1280x800 ... Albeit that I normally don't even push it that hard and only usually use 1024x768, seeing as I'm using a 2nd monitor at 1024x768 simultaneously. <3:

 

BTW, here's a link to buy one from NewEgg.com, and a link to buy the PCI-E version if my assumption about slots was wrong. And you won't need a monster power supply to handle this video card. It does well in tandem with a 430W PWS just fine. B)

 

Long and short, if you buy a card that does what you want/need, gives you good performance, and didn't cost you an arm-and-a-leg, then you've picked the right card for some time to come. :thumbsup:

 

~D. V. "Good Luck, and Good Gaming!" Devnull