graphics card recomendation please

[timothye]

HI , my name is timothye .
I have a pc that i am thinking about upgrading .
AMD sempron 1.7GHz
1GB pc 3200 @400
nVidia GeForce 7300GS 512MB
maxtor 100GB *IDE

i play games on this machine and generaly i have to turn everything off inorder to play a specific game .
I am trying to play at the moment .
Team Fortress 2
Medal of honor > ariborne
Cal of Duty 4
i can get the games to play but as i noted everything is off * all settings are as low as they can be *
I would like to know if this machine would perform better with a new graphics card and a memory upgrade ?

i dont have the cash for a new complete machine or i would go that route , but for the time being would an upgrade give me a lot more performance and would i be able to turn up - on some of the textures ETC up to medium at least and not have as much lagg or would you suggest that i just wait and build a new machine at a latter date ?

if a memory upgrade and a Gcard is going to give me a noticable difference in game play then would you please note some Gcards that i could use with this system and the memory as well .

Cheers T

 

[rgeist554]

What is your motherboard? This will help determine what would work well with your system.

My personal opinions is that you won't be able to upgrade to anything that is really high-performance. You may be able to get something that is mid-class or so, but it won't be easy as you're using pretty old parts. *edit* I'd think that any new graphics card you get will be immediately bottlenecked by your 1.7Ghz proc, so upgrading single parts isn't going to net you much of a performance increase.

 

[Evilonigiri]

Sounds like an AGP to me.

Save your money for a new build, it's really not worth buying an AGP card.

 

[amd_fanboi]

yeah.... jump onto PCI-E and you'll see stars

 

[timothye]

hi again .. sorry for the delay in a reply ..
here is the link ot my mobo .
its a pci-e x16 slot for the Gcard ,
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00361528&locale=en_US

thanks for any help .

Cheers T

 

[Evilonigiri]

hi again .. sorry for the delay in a reply ..
here is the link ot my mobo .
its a pci-e x16 slot for the Gcard ,
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00361528&locale=en_US

thanks for any help .

Cheers T

Perhaps the 2600XT or the 8600GT will suit you. Any better cards aren't worth it, since your cpu is quite weak.

 

[timothye]

ddr or ddr2 or ddr3 ..
only the 8600GT "DDR" will work on my system , is this correct ?
also what are we talking about in performance upgrade from what i have now ??
Cheers T

 

[rgeist554]

It's MicroATX guys, I'm not sure if a full sized card would fit. Don't you usually need a form-factor card for that? (Depends on the size of the case, but I'm assuming the OP's is fairly small.)

 

[Evilonigiri]

ddr or ddr2 or ddr3 ..
only the 8600GT will work on my system , is this correct ?
also what are we talking about in performance upgrade from what i have now ??
Cheers T

No, you use the fastest video card in your system, but the 2600XT or the 8600GT is most suible for your system.

You should see quite a boost in gaming.

 

[Evilonigiri]

It's MicroATX guys, I'm not sure if a full sized card would fit. Don't you usually need a form-factor card for that? (Depends on the size of the case, but I'm assuming the OP's is fairly small.)

Well it really boils down on case size. If it's one of those dell slim factor pcs, yeah you'll need a half sized vidcard.

 

[timothye]

ok .. no its not a dell ..
its a compaq machine , dont know who made the case . but tis a full size case ..and there is enough room in the case ..
so your suggestion would be the 8600GT ddr3 512MB ,PCI-E x16
card .

if this machine uses pc 3200 DDR . wouldnt that mean that this ddr3 or ddr2 wouldnt work on the machine ? or would i not receive the performance speed of the ddr3 or ddr 2 and i would be just a waste . if my theory is at all true ??
thanks for all the replies ,
Cheers T

 

[rgeist554]

No, the card uses GDDR3 RAM, the G meaning graphics RAM. That is much different than plain old DDR RAM. As long as you have a PCI-E x16 slot and room to accomodate the card, it will work.

 

[timothye]

ok - sounds very good then ..
thanks for the help .

Cheers T

 

[timothye]

1 lasy question . if the card is a DX 10 card will it work on DX9.0c ?
runing XP home SP_2

thanks again

 

[Avenger_K]

1 lasy question . if the card is a DX 10 card will it work on DX9.0c ?
runing XP home SP_2

thanks again

Yes.

 

[Shadow703793]

Not worth upgrading just save the money and build a new PC.