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Graphics card advise needed

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Graphics card advise needed

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I have got a dell dimension 8250, intel pentium 4, 512mb VRam with a 250W PSU. I just wanted to know what good agp graphics cards would work with my system.Im buying the card to work with the game called "Test Drive Unlimited". System Requirements for the game are:

Windows 2000/XP/Vista
CPU : Intel P4 @ 2.4 GHz
GPU (Video Cards) : ATI Radeon 9800 256MB VRAM or Nvidia 6600 GT with 256 MB of VRAM. Video Cards with vertex/pixel shaders 2.x and above are recommended.
System Memory : 512 MB, 1 GB recommended Hard Disk free space: 8 GB
DirectX 9.0C (included)

I am willing to buy another PSU if needed.
Any helpers :)

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Its all very well buying a card for one game but what other things will you be using the pc for also what other games will you be playing.
I would have thought that you would need a new psu.
Took a while and looked at some reviews and while it lists system specs as you put.

Windows 2000/XP/Vista
CPU : Intel P4 @ 2.4 GHz
GPU (Video Cards) : ATI Radeon 9800 256MB VRAM or Nvidia 6600 GT with 256 MB of VRAM. Video Cards with vertex/pixel shaders 2.x and above are recommended.
System Memory : 512 MB, 1 GB recommended Hard Disk free space: 8 GB
DirectX 9.0C (included)

These would most likley be min specs and the reviews i looked at said x1900xt was having probs at max detail.
So let us know what else you will be doing and we can get a clearer picture. More ram is a must though.
Mactronix

Reply to mactronix
- 0 +

Your biggest issue is the power supply. You can't get a high end card that needs 26 or more amps on the 12 volt rail because of your stock Dell 250 watt power supply. I don't think you can get a card that needs 20 amps, like the old 7800GS.

You can open up your case and see if the amps are listed, or e-mail Dell tech support for info on that PSU. If they're listed, they would be on a sticker clearly visible on the PSU.

For an AGP card in that system without an upgraded power supply, I'd get a cheap X1650 Pro or 7600 GS. I have an X1650 Pro 512 AGP in my P4, and it gives me high settings on Oblivion, so I think you'd have no problems with it that game.

See the Best Gaming Cards for the Money article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] the_money/

The last page has a chart showing at what category of performance different generations of cards are at:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] page6.html

Here are the prices at Newegg:

X1650 Pro AGP:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] n+X1650PRO

X1650 XT AGP:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] on+X1650XT

7600GS and GT AGP:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] e+7+series

The XT AMD and GT Nvidia cards are the faster.

Reply to yipsl
- 0 +

An eBay X800XL, X800XT, or 6800GT would be a good option.

Reply to Anoobis
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