Need help finding new graphic card

dunno what the pc specs are really this is my boyfriends comp umm this is what i got from a website about his motherboard though if this helps

ET1641-02w ECS MCP73VT-PM Intel® Celeron® X2 E1400 2.0 GHz

http://www.provantage.com/evga-512 [...] VGA0F8.htm
Video Card GT240 512MB DDR5 Dvii+VGA+HDMI Retail
Manufacturer Part# 512-P3-1240-LR

* Product Type: Graphics Card
* Memory Speed: 3400 MHz
* Host Interface: PCI Express 2.0 x16
* Standard Memory: 512 MB
* Memory Technology: GDDR5 SDRAM
$65.70

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product
SAPPHIRE 100287VGAL Radeon HD 5670 (Redwood) 512MB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

* Radeon HD 5670 (Redwood)...
* 512MB DDR5
* PCI Express 2.0 x16

* Chipset Manufacturer: ATI
* Core Clock: 775MHz
* Stream Processors: 400 Stream Processing Units
* Effective Memory Clock: 1000MHz (4Gbps)
* Model #: 100287VGAL
* Item #: N82E16814102871
* Return Policy: VGA Standard Return Policy

$64.99 with rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product
SAPPHIRE 100296HDMI Radeon HD 4670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

* Radeon HD 4670
* 1GB DDR3
* PCI Express 2.0 x16

* Chipset Manufacturer: ATI
* Core Clock: 750MHz
* Stream Processors: 320 Stream Processing Units
* Effective Memory Clock: 1600MHz
* Model #: 100296HDMI
* Item #: N82E16814102855
* Return Policy: VGA Standard Return Policy

$58.99 with rebate

what does pci express 2.0 mean? and ddr5? those r the 2 things im confused about

no need to be confused...
it will work.
ddr5 is the type of memory and pci-e 2.0 is the newer version to 1.0.
like i said, don't worry about it.

it will work, i wouldn't recommend something that isn't compatible...
c'mon, seriously.?

it's physically the same, the only difference is in speed/timing.
the video card will run at the speed the motherboards allows......

While in development, PCIe was initially referred to as HSI (for High Speed Interconnect), and underwent a name change to 3GIO (for 3rd Generation I/O) before finally settling on its PCI-SIG name PCI Express. It was first drawn up by a technical working group named the Arapaho Work Group (AWG) which, for initial drafts, consisted of an Intel only team of architects. Subsequently the AWG was expanded to include industry partners.

PCIe is a technology under constant development and improvement. The current PCI Express implementation is version 3.0.
[edit] PCI Express 1.0a

In 2003, PCI-SIG introduced PCIe 1.0a, with a data rate of 250 MB/s and a transfer rate of 2.5 GT/s.
[edit] PCI Express 2.0

PCI-SIG announced the availability of the PCI Express Base 2.0 specification on 15 January 2007.[10] The PCIe 2.0 standard doubles the per-lane throughput from the PCIe 1.0 standard's 250 MB/s to 500 MB/s. This means a 32-lane PCI connector (x32) can support throughput up to 16 GB/s aggregate. The PCIe 2.0 standard uses a base clock speed of 5.0 GHz, while the first version operates at 2.5 GHz.

PCIe 2.0 motherboard slots are fully backward compatible with PCIe v1.x cards. PCIe 2.0 cards are also generally backward compatible with PCIe 1.x motherboards, using the available bandwidth of PCI Express 1.1. Overall, graphic cards or motherboards designed for v 2.0 will be able to work with the other being v 1.1 or v 1.0.

The PCI-SIG also said that PCIe 2.0 features improvements to the point-to-point data transfer protocol and its software architecture.[11]

In June 2007 Intel released the specification of the Intel P35 chipset which supports only PCIe 1.1, not PCIe 2.0.[12] Some people may be confused by the P35 block diagram which states the Intel P35 has a PCIe x16 graphics link (8 GB/s) and 6 PCIe x1 links (500 MB/s each).[13] For simple verification one can view the P965 block diagram which shows the same number of lanes and bandwidth but was released before PCIe 2.0 was finalized.[original research?] Intel's first PCIe 2.0 capable chipset was the X38 and boards began to ship from various vendors (Abit, Asus, Gigabyte) as of October 21, 2007.[14] AMD started supporting PCIe 2.0 with its AMD 700 chipset series and nVidia started with the MCP72.[15] The specification of the Intel P45 chipset includes PCIe 2.0.
[edit] PCI Express 2.1

PCI Express 2.1 supports a large proportion of the management, support, and troubleshooting systems planned to be fully implemented in PCI Express 3.0. However, the speed is the same as PCI Express 2.0. Most motherboards sold currently come with PCI Express 2.0 connectors.
[edit] PCI Express 3.0

PCI Express 3.0 Base specification revision 3.0 was made available in November 2010, after multiple delays. In August 2007, PCI-SIG announced that PCI Express 3.0 would carry a bit rate of 8 gigatransfers per second, and that it would be backwards compatible with existing PCIe implementions. At that time, it was also announced that the final specification for PCI Express 3.0 would be delayed until 2011,[16] although more recent sources (see below) stated that it may be available towards the end of 2010. New features for the PCIe 3.0 specification include a number of optimizations for enhanced signaling and data integrity, including transmitter and receiver equalization, PLL improvements, clock data recovery, and channel enhancements for currently supported topologies.[17]

Following a six-month technical analysis of the feasibility of scaling the PCIe interconnect bandwidth, PCI-SIG's analysis found out that 8 gigatransfers per second can be manufactured in mainstream silicon process technology, and can be deployed with existing low-cost materials and infrastructure, while maintaining full compatibility (with negligible impact) to the PCIe protocol stack.

PCIe 2.0 delivers 5 GT/s, but employs an 8b/10b encoding scheme which results in a 20 percent overhead on the raw bit rate. PCIe 3.0 removes the requirement for 8b/10b encoding and instead uses a technique called "scrambling" in which "a known binary polynomial is applied to a data stream in a feedback topology. Because the scrambling polynomial is known, the data can be recovered by running it through a feedback topology using the inverse polynomial"[18] but still uses a 128b/130b encoding scheme. PCIe 3.0's 8 GT/s bit rate effectively delivers double PCIe 2.0 bandwidth. According to an official press release by PCI-SIG on 8 August 2007:

"The final PCIe 3.0 specifications, including form factor specification updates, may be available by late 2009, and could be seen in products starting in 2010 and beyond."[19]

As of January 2010[update], the release of the final specifications had been delayed until Q2 2010.[20] PCI-SIG expects the PCIe 3.0 specifications to undergo rigorous technical vetting and validation before being released to the industry. This process, which was followed in the development of prior generations of the PCIe Base and various form factor specifications, includes the corroboration of the final electrical parameters with data derived from test silicon and other simulations conducted by multiple members of the PCI-SIG.

On May 31, 2010, it was announced that the 3.0 specification would be coming in 2010, but not until the second half of the year.[21] Then, on June 23, 2010, the PCI Special Interest Group released a timetable showing the final 3.0 specification due in the fourth quarter of 2010.[22]

Finally, on November 18, 2010, the PCI Special Interest Group officially publishes the finalized PCI Express 3.0 specification to its members to build devices based on this new version of PCI Express.[23]
[edit] Current status

PCI Express has replaced AGP as the default interface for graphics cards on new systems. With a few exceptions, all graphics cards being released as of 2009 and 2010 from ATI and NVIDIA use PCI Express. NVIDIA uses the high bandwidth data transfer of PCIe for its Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology, which allows multiple graphics cards of the same chipset and model number to be run in tandem, allowing increased performance. ATI also has developed a multi-GPU system based on PCIe called CrossFire. AMD and NVIDIA have released motherboard chipsets which support up to four PCIe ×16 slots, allowing tri-GPU and quad-GPU card configurations.

Uptake for other forms of PC expansion has been much slower and conventional PCI remains dominant. PCI Express is commonly used for disk array controllers, onboard gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi but add-in cards are still generally conventional PCI, particularly at the lower end of the market. Sound cards, TV/capture-cards, modems, serial port/USB/Firewire cards, network/WiFi cards and other cards with low-speed interfaces are still nearly all conventional PCI. For this reason most motherboards supporting PCI Express offer conventional PCI slots as well. As of 2010 many of these cards are starting to make their way over to x8, x4 or x1, PCIe slots which are present in motherboards. For instance, almost all new sound cards from the second half of 2010 are now PCIe.

ExpressCard has been introduced on several mid- to high-range laptops such as Apple's MacBook Pro line. Unlike desktops, however, laptops frequently only have one expansion slot. Replacing the PC card slot with ExpressCard slot means a loss in compatibility with PC-card devices.

GDDR5
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GDDR5 (Graphics Double Data Rate, version 5) SGRAM is a type of high performance dynamic random-access graphics card memory designed for applications requiring high bandwidth. Unlike its predecessor, GDDR4, GDDR5 is based on DDR3 memory which has double the data lines ("DQ" lines) compared to DDR2 but GDDR5 also has 8 bit wide prefetch buffers like GDDR4.[citation needed]

GDDR5 SGRAM conforms to the standards which were set out in the GDDR5 specification by the JEDEC. It uses a 8n prefetch architecture and DDR interface to achieve high performance operation and can be configured to operate in x32 mode or x16 (clamshell) mode which is detected during device initialization. The GDDR5 interface transfers two 32 bit wide data words per write clock (WCK) cycle to/from the I/O pins. Corresponding to the 8n prefetch, a single write or read access consists of a 256 bit wide two CK clock cycle data transfer at the internal memory core and eight corresponding 32 bit wide one-half WCK clock cycle data transfers at the I/O pins.

GDDR5 operates with two different clock types. A differential command clock (CK) to where address and command inputs are referenced, and a forwarded differential write clock (WCK) where read and write data are referenced to. Being more precise, the GDDR5 SGRAM uses two write clocks, each of them assigned to two bytes. The WCK runs at twice the CK frequency. Taking a GDDR5 with 5 Gbps data rate per pin as an example, the CK clock runs with 1.25 GHz and WCK with 2.5 GHz. The CK and WCK clocks will be aligned during the initialization and training sequence. This alignment allows read and write access with minimum latency.

A single 32-bit GDDR5 chip has about 67 signal pins and the rest are power and grounds in the 170 BGA package.

Qimonda, a spin-off of Infineon, has demonstrated and sampled GDDR5,[1] and released a paper about the technologies behind GDDR5.[2] On May 10, 2008, Qimonda announced volume production of 512 Mib GDDR5 modules rated at 3.6 Gbit/s (900 MHz), 4.0 Gbit/s (1 GHz), and 4.5 Gbit/s (1.125 GHz).[3][dated info]

Hynix Semiconductor has introduced the industry's first 1 Gib GDDR5 memory. It supports a bandwidth of 20 GB/s on a 32-bit bus, which enables memory configurations of 1 GiB at 160 GB/s with only 8 circuits on a 256-bit bus. Hynix 2Gb GDDR5 boasts with 7 GHz clock speed. The newly developed GDDR5 is the fastest and highest density graphics memory available in the market. It operates at 7 GHz effective clock-speed and processes up to 28GB/s with a 32-bit I/O. 2Gb GDDR5 memory chips will enable graphics cards with 2GB or more of onboard memory with 224GB/s or higher peak bandwidth. The memory maker claims that the new chip will be in demand in the second half of 2010.

On June 25, 2008, AMD became the first company to ship products using GDDR5 memory with its Radeon HD 4870 video card series, incorporating Qimonda's 512 Mb memory modules at 3.6 Gbit/s bandwidth.[4][5]

no need for that.
i know your system better that you do, no offense.
I believe all questions have been answered and the suggestions (ALL) will work.
period..

Np, you know your stuff well, and give good recommendations, eager to help, to what I have seen, been quite new to toms..

you really don't get it.
you really can't game on $65 cards...! (used off eBay maybe a better chance..)
so it doesn't really matter which one you choose out of the ones suggested.
all are in the same class performance wise....
since you have nVidia chipset, go with the GT240..

call it an early x-mas present and decide to spend like $100-$125 and then you can get a decent gaming card..

well i mean im sure that graphic card is better then the onboard one he doesnt care if its the best performance he just wants somethin better then whats in the computer already hes been playing with the onboard graphic card without complaining for awhile and it never really messed up so im sure he will like it way more then the onboard graphic card

we ordered the GT240 but is it like just a little better then the intragated geforce 7050 or is it alot better then that?

windows vista if thats what u mean, but do you have any ideas what i can do to make my comp perform better without buying anything? like ways to clean it out or anything>??

wait so i can go to windows 7? and what do you mean if im still a student? you mean in school lol?

oh well im a senior in high school and only have a hotmail.com not a .edu mail so dont think i am