ATI Radeon 9250 128mb compared to Intel Extreme Grap. 845

[frankienyc123]

A freind of mine has an older entry level Dell computer that his boss gave him when the company upgraded. Here are the basic specs
Pentium4 2.4ghz
256mb ram
80gig hard drive
Cd-r/rw drive
integrated Intel 845 extreme graphics

Ok so he is really into using programs like Google earth and likes to play some of the retro games like Doom. I have an ATI Radeom 9250 that I am not using and am going to donate to his budget PC. Is it even worth the trouble?? Would a lowly Radeon 9250 128mb be any better than the Intel 845 integrated graphics? Im hoping at least to free up some memory since the 9250 has 128mb onboard compared to the 64mb shared memory of the Intel integrated graphics. Do you guys think it will help at all???

 

[cleeve]

The 9250 is 10x better than the integrated graphics he has.

Then again, it'd only make a real difference in 3d games.

But I'd give it to him anyway. And then he can stop sharing RAM with the integrated graphics...

 

[sithscout80]

I agree with Cleeve, it will take some load off the RAM which isn't very much currently. I would suggest adding 256MB of RAM to make the computer run smoother.

 

[melarcky]

the pc over all isnt THAT bad. and the ATI 9250 is actually a pretty good card.. and because you wont playing any games at all i would say you should get another 256mb ram and it would be a nice little home PC for surfing the net and watching movies

 

[frankienyc123]

Thanks guys, I have told him that he needs more ram, but he doesnt have any money to put into the computer right now. The computer is very slow even after i did a fresh install of XP for him, XP just doesnt run well with 256mb especially with the video card stealing some of that ram. Maybe im just used to having a fat dual core but it seems even my old Duron 1.1ghz 768mb notebook seems faster than his P4 2.4 machine.

 

[frankienyc123]

Well just opened up his PC and took a look inside, it doesnt even have an AGP slot!! just a few PCI slots and thats it. I guess these computers were made for office use and not for upgrading?

 

[IcY18]

does it have PCI-E?

 

[frankienyc123]

nope just PCI

 

[IcY18]

nope just PCI

Typical dell thats for sure, about 4 years ago my parents bought a HP with a P4 830 with an Asus mobo and it even had a PCI-E slot, these days i see HP selling much better computers, most of their stuff is not propietary either like Dell and there BTX style setup and propietary psu's

 

[SEALBoy]

Believe it or not, I had a 9250 coupled with an Athlon XP 2000+, and I played Call of Duty 2 with textures at maximum (rest at medium, no AA or AF) at frame rates around 30. For a card thats worth $25 nowadays, its pretty powerful.

Come to think of it, I also played Age of Empires 3 on it in medium detail as well.

 

[happy_fanboy]

Intel graphics suck so bad that you can't even right click the desktop without an hourglass, very very horrible.

 

[IcY18]

Intel graphics suck so bad that you can't even right click the desktop without an hourglass, very very horrible.

What computer did you use this with? because on the same P4 830 that my parents bought a 4 years ago also had the intergrated graphics, and before i eventually upgraded from my Geforce 3 which was unplayable in cs source to a x700 pro i wanted to see how this computer would do,
so i was interested to see how onboard video was compared to my old asus geforce 3 64mb graphics card, well believe it or not but i was actually able to play cs:s at decent resolution(1024x768) and settings on medium, now i know cs:s isn't a graphic intensive game but its way more intensive that regular cs 1.6, so even though you say that their onboad sucks i think they've atleast come a ways and onboard video can do more than just spin the hourglass, and its not like too many people demand it to do more than just that anway
and it only had 512mb of ram

 

[happy_fanboy]

Every single intel graphics shipset i have ever used does this. They all lag when you right click the desktop. They might walk a game but not very well.

 

[Rand0m7158]

I have an old Dell Dimension 2350 that only has PCI slots and Integrated Graphics. Would I see better results in Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat if I got a Radeon 9250?

 

[sithscout80]

Yes the Radeon 9250 would give much better frame rates than the integrated.

 

[SEALBoy]

The games will run significantly faster, but CS is such an old game (unless your talking about Source) that there won't be much (if any) noticeable difference. Day of Defeat should see an improvement.

I would get the card just so I can free up the shared RAM that the integrated graphics are taking.

 

[Rand0m7158]

Thanks for the info and fast replies.

 

[slim142]

Tell'im this

Save $100 for the pc, spend $50 on a radeon 9250 PCI version and the other $50 for a stick of 512 of ram. that should make it fast enough even for some games.

 

[Rand0m7158]

I bought and installed a Radeon 9250 but it's very hot to the touch. Is this normal for a fanless model?

 

[SEALBoy]

Yes, the heatsink can get very hot to the touch when placed under load. Both my Radeon 9000 and Radeon 9250 got very hot to touch, but I never had any malfunction at all.