What was the best PCI card? (chirstmas!)

[smilingoat]

my mother really wants to play Sim City Societies. she has 1GB of DDR ram and a P4 2.4ghz. the problem is on board video card. the other problem is it isnt AGP, its PCI (not express)

at this point we would like to get the best PCI card that was released to market, its a temporary fix and it will only work on low settings. but it will be worth it until they get their new computer in about 1 year (in which i will be buying for them, with their money, $1000, at that point there will be no problem with her playing her game)

anyway, i just really need an answer quick so i can get the card and game ready for chirstmas morning.

system requirements are a video card with 128MB, so there should be some PCI card that works. was there ever a 256MB pci card?

anyway, thanks for the help.

Smilingoat

 

[Xazax310]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103031

X1550 currently the best PCI card money can buy 90$ is quite steep but hey if you intend on playing and keeping that computer for another couple of years go for it!

Something else to look at is the 6200 PCI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130289
going right now at newegg for $34.99 heck of deal!

now its not the best card but for a dead GFX bus it will be kind to your aging system.

 

[smilingoat]

thanks for the fast reply, next question is how hard/safe is it to OC one of these cards, and would it be worth it? ive never done it before, although i have friends that do it often, just not in contact with them atm, but could be after the card gets here... anyway i just want to make sure this plays Sim City Societies, if we spend all this money and it cant play the game, its going to be disappointment all around. well it will at least make it to the point where we could play the sims 2 im sure... and older sims games....

gah just nervous atm.

thanks again though.

 

[Xazax310]

the X1550 will be able to handle most games reasonable well, i assume this off my own X1300Pro it can run CoH at 30-60 FPS on low/Medium but it is servely CPU limited. However if all you really wish to play is Sim societies i doubt that will be a taxing game as say Crysis.

6200 PCI i list because of its price $35 and a low end GPU isnt a bad deal though dont expect much out of it.

As for OCing i doubt you can pull much more from these cards! i would give 100mhz for memory and 50 or so from the core not much more IMHO.
Ocing my 1300pro GDDR2 i got about 870Mhz Memory and only 430 Core. (400/800)

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

my mother really wants to play Sim City Societies. she has 1GB of DDR ram and a P4 2.4ghz. the problem is on board video card. the other problem is it isnt AGP, its PCI (not express)

at this point we would like to get the best PCI card that was released to market, its a temporary fix and it will only work on low settings. but it will be worth it until they get their new computer in about 1 year (in which i will be buying for them, with their money, $1000, at that point there will be no problem with her playing her game)

anyway, i just really need an answer quick so i can get the card and game ready for chirstmas morning.

system requirements are a video card with 128MB, so there should be some PCI card that works. was there ever a 256MB pci card?

anyway, thanks for the help.

Smilingoat

it is better to get a 939 cpu and MB with a pci-e video card or get a new system.

939 lets you keep the your old ram and the boards have 2 ide ports.

 

[smilingoat]

well its a stepping stone system, its about to be downgraded to online poker, kids games, and internet, while my parents get my system when i upgrade.

(quad 2 duo 2.44ghz
2X8800GTS
4GB 800 DDR2 RAM
etc.)

so they will have a great set up in a yeah, again this is just so she can play her game of the year before she gets to play whatever the **** she wants

 

[pauldh]

Ouch, PCI. A few tips ... Avoid 64-bit cards. 128-bit memory interface is better. Also keep an eye on clock speeds as they vary greatly among cards named the same.