Newbieee Upgrade

[guinness]

Hi Guys,

Great forum you guys have here with loads & loads of info... (Maybe a bit too much for a Newbieee.... LOL)

Onto my question:
I currently have a Dell 4600 P4(2.8ghz) with a 1GB of ram and I currently have a Winfast A250 (Geforce4 Ti 4400 - 128mb) and one of the cooling fans on the board is getting very very noisey and it's driving me crazy!!!

I'd like to know what is a decent upgrade to this card with spending too many $$$. (If that's at all possible).

Thanks for the input.
Rob

 

[mrmonsoon]

Please tell us what "not to much money is to you".

To some people it is $100 to others it is $3-400.

It would also help if you told us what you do with the computer-hardcore graphic rendering, gaming (old or new ones) or just microsoft word and net access-this would help in recommending the right card for your needs, with out spending for what you don't need.

Also be prepared for the usual nvidia vs ati war of words.

Another point is once you decide what chipset is for you, you need to decide on a card manufacturer, what I mean is (put her to piss many people off) I have a Nvidia 6600GT (christmas present) put out by EVGA, but many other manufacturers make this card also.

 

[guinness]

Thanks for the info, I see there's alot of choices for a decent video card. (Maybe too many - LOL!!!)

Well I'de like to spend under 200$ for a card that can play current games (Call of Duty, Half Life2 ....)

I did a little research so far and I found that the PowerColor ATI Radeon 9800Pro sounds good. What do you think? Which GEForce card would be comparable in price and preformance?

Thanks again,
Rob

 

[cleeve]

For $200, the 9800 PRO isn't the best choice...

The Geforce 6600GT is the better card by far.

________________
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[Guest]

Agree with cleeve, and whatever you do, stay the f*ck away from powercrapper!!!

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[mrmonsoon]

I have a 6600GT and run halflife 2 and far cry with everything up to max.

It can be had for about $200 online-you might want to stay away from evga brand-they tend to have problems with the fans contacting the heatsink cover-allowing the card to heat up or melt.

 

[guinness]

Thanks for the info, I checked out NEWEGG.com and found a few 6600GT's for around 180$.
Leadtek, Giga-Byte & XFX, out of these which is the best company to go with?

Rob

 

[Rugger]

XFX

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[pauldh]

Yup, 256-bit R9800pro's can be found for $170, but one of the $180-$190 GF6600GT's would be a better card to get.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>