Install old ati x600 over new nvidia 9100 integrated?

[ocada]

Hey guys,

I'm new to this whole video card stuff and mainly have happily just used stock computers to run games at low settings.

But I recently bought a new HP p6310f which seems loaded(AMD 630 athlon x4; 6 gigs ddr3 ram; 1tb of space) except for the video card which is a nividia 9100. This case, according to every forum i read really sucks for gaming.

I understand that, so my question is would it make sense to cannibalize my dead old dell that had a ati x600 card in it so that I'll have a dedicated GPU? Or is that not much of an upgrade over the 9100 by itself?

Please note: This is a short term solution if the 9100 won't be able to handle lotro, as my x600 handled it just fine(on medium settings, but still ). Eventually I'd like to get a nice card, but it seems like I'd need to get an upgraded PSU as well and thats $150 I rather not spend if I can avoid it for a bit. Thanks.

 

[mephiston1]

The only nVidia 9100 I know of is an integrated card. Even then comparing the stats of that vs the old X600, my advice would be to go with 9100. Although it's not a powerful card, is does have 4 years worth of tech advancement going for it. In that 4 years alot of improvements have been made not to mention DirectX support although I don't think DirectX 10 is a big consideration in this case. Even a simple comparison of fillrate which measures how fast the cards can draw the objects in the screen, the 9100 is easily double that of the X600. This is a simple albeit inaccurate comparison that wouldn't stand up to proper benchmarking but it works to get a rough idea.

So my advice is go with the 9100. Simplest way to really find out? Download 3dMark06, try it out with the X600, note down the score, then repeat with the 9100. Higher score wins. assuming you want to take the effort that is.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_R300_PCIe_.28X3xx.2C_X5xx.2C_X6xx.29_series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_9M_.289xxxM.29_series