Good video card for low-end system?

[kmfdmaddict]

I'm looking for a decent video card for my very low-end system. The Radeon7500VE ain't cutting it. That will teach me to buy before researching.

Specs:
Celeron 1.8Ghz
ECS P4VXASD2+ Mobo
256MB DDRRAM

I don't think I would get much by buying the newest cards like the Radeon 9500Pro. Right now I'm looking at GeForce 3 cards. Would this be ok?

 

[tombance]

Get a Radeon 8500 64/128mb (your choice) card. Its a bit better than the GF3 series (supports DX8.1) and costs less. It may also have the added benefit of meaning you dont need to reinstall your OS, as swapping a Radeon for an nvidia card can cause many problems.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5467618 " target="_new">Almost Breaking 12k!!</A>

 

[NE_Corridor]

Take a look at the Radeon 9100 series video cards. Their updated 8500s and the most expensive one that I saw was a 128mb pro version selling fo $129 at CompUSA. I've heard you could get them around $110. If you do some seaching, you can find GeForce4 Ti4200 cards for around $100. Either one would suite you nicely.

Yay, I'm a freakin' noob.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Get a 250/250 clocked 64 MB R8500LE. 128 MB R8500LE's come with much slower memory. And 128 MB VRAM is useless (unless you use AA) for now and near future.

<b> "You can put lipstick on a pig, but hey, it's still a pig!" - RobD </b>

 

[chuck232]

I found a 128MB ABIT Ti4200 128MB AGP8X at newegg.com for $120. It's AGP8X, which means it's got the 513MHz RAM instead of the 446MHz for the older AGP4X cards. That would be a pretty good deal, considering they are a bit faster than the R8500s.

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[ejsmith2]

Do the 8500's just not overclock much?

"I personally think filesystems should be rewritten from scratch every 5 years..." --- Hans Reiser

 

[chuck232]

Well, I got my R8500LE 128MB up to 310/310... so I dunno. I find my Ti4200 does overclock more, from 250/444 to 310/596.

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[phsstpok]

My BBA 8500OEM 64MB overclocks from 275/250 to 308/340 (680 DDR) but it has 3.3 ns memory.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[Crashman]

Well, you could get a Radeon 7500. In case you were wondering why I said that, VE means they reduced the performance by about 50%, the REAL Radeon 7500 is a decent card, the VE isn't.

Anyway, a Radeon 8500 would be a better solution still, and I see others recomending it also!

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[NE_Corridor]

www.newegg.com has a radeon 9100 from powercolor for $73.00.

Yay, I'm a freakin' noob.