Need help getting the right card

[vince_74]

My wife has a stock(aside from a ram upgrade.. she has a total of 2GB now) E Machine W3052. She is complaining about the latency while playing World of warcraft. I want to suprise her with a new video card to increase the quality of her game experience.

according to Blizzard the recommended video card is either an ATI Radeon X1600 or a Nvidia GeForce 7600GT.

My question is will her system be able to handle either of these video cards (or maybe one a bit better) ?

The system specs are as follows
CPU: AMD Sempron™ 3000+ Processor (512KB L2 cache, 2GHz, 333MHz FSB)

Operating System: Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Home SP2

Chipset: NVIDIA® nForce™ 2 chipset

Memory: 2GB SDRAM (PC2700)

Hard Drive: 120GB HDD

Video: NVIDIA® GeForce®4™ MX graphics 64MB DDR Shared memory

Sound: nForce™ 6-Channel Audio


If you need any other information please let me know. I will do my best to help you to help me

Thanks

 

[bri4n]

I dont supose you know if your mother boared is PCI or AGP do you.

I am guessing it is PCI if so any of these cards will run the game fine and they are all only about £70 ish

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=356

 

[Helloworld_98]

^ no it's AGP or PCI (not PCIe) because I think they didn't make 4 series graphics cards for PCIe.

best card you can do if it's AGP would be the ATi 3850.

But it's probably a better idea if you surprise her with a new PC, the one she has now is poor.

 

[vince_74]

here is a link to the exact motherboard it has ..

http://www.ascendtech.us/itemdesc.asp?ic=MBAEMAC102732&eq=&Tp=


as you can see it has one (1) 4x/8x AGP slot and three (3) PCI slots

 

[bri4n]

your graphics is AGP which is not great there is not a great deal of choice in AGP cards anymore here are a few of the best that are still availabe new

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=403


But as stated above you would be much better off buying a new machine instead of flogging a dead horse so to speak

 

[vince_74]

thank you for your candid answers. I guess now the only question remaining is do I spend the cash for a graphics card to "hold her over" until I can afford a new PC, or just listen to the complaints in stoic silence

 

[coozie7]

I take it you're in the UK, vince?
Are you confusing latency with low frame rates? Poor latency is down to the internet connection, low frame rates are not.

 

[vince_74]

I take it you're in the UK, vince?
Are you confusing latency with low frame rates? Poor latency is down to the internet connection, low frame rates are not.

actually no .. I'm Pennsylvania.

tha problem is even with her video settings turned down low there are certain places in the game (mainly major cities like Dalaran) where she gets disconnected every time she tries to go there. Anywhere else she can play fine, but as soon as she hits a "high traffic" area ... *ploop* ... disconnected.

 

[coozie7]

O.K., at least I got the right Hemisphere
This looks like it will get the job one, not too expensive either:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131134

As always, read the Newegg reviews, they contain soloutions to issues others have had, and overcome.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

Well... her boar is AGP which no matter what kind of card you get is gonna be slow , you'd be better off getting her a laptop of a cheap desktop.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

If you get her a desktop this is the cheapest one tht will play WoW for quite some time , http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103216

 

[vince_74]

Thank you all for your generous advice.