Graphics Card Recommendations

[pmeswani]

I've had the opposite experience, and favour nVidia. If you don't play cutting-edge games I'd spend no more than £100.

Point taken. I am pretty much sold on nVidia. I'll take the cost factor into consideration.

Thanks for the pointers everyone.

[d000hg]

You also face the decision between getting something that was cutting-edge a year or two back and is now reduced, or a new budget-range card. Older cards may still have more raw speed but newer ones tend to cram in all the newer features, at slower speeds.

Best advice is to just find some online review site, or a magazine reviewing a dozen cards, I'm afraid. Or read wikipedia to understand what all the different ranges and numbers mean, so you can tell if GX2000 is faster than FX50, etc.

ps: 1GB RAM seems quite high for a non-gamer, unless you have other intensive apps. Even gaming cards didn't really start breaking the 256/512 barrier as a matter of course that long ago.

Here are nVidia cards with HDMI, PCI-E on dabs.com:

http://www.dabs.com/category/compone...000-4294955174

[pmeswani]

You also face the decision between getting something that was cutting-edge a year or two back and is now reduced, or a new budget-range card. Older cards may still have more raw speed but newer ones tend to cram in all the newer features, at slower speeds.

Best advice is to just find some online review site, or a magazine reviewing a dozen cards, I'm afraid. Or read wikipedia to understand what all the different ranges and numbers mean, so you can tell if GX2000 is faster than FX50, etc.

ps: 1GB RAM seems quite high for a non-gamer, unless you have other intensive apps. Even gaming cards didn't really start breaking the 256/512 barrier as a matter of course that long ago.

Here are nVidia cards with HDMI, PCI-E on dabs.com:

Graphics products at great prices - dabs.com

Sadly, I use Second Life a lot. I need a graphics card that is capable of handling the load with some ease.

[Fred Bloggs]

Bear in mind that lot of modern video cards take up a lot of real estate in your PC case and many require two slots width to accomodate the cooler fan and other hardware. Some cards are also very long, check for obstructions in the case. Lastly, modern video cards take al ot of power and they typically need supplementary power connectors in addituion to the juice they draw from the PCIe slot. Make sure that your power supply is upto the job and that it has the required connestors. I fitted a 1Gb DDR5 ATI 5750 card to my lads PC a few moths ago and upgraded the power supply to a 750 watt unit by Corsair to supply the power the card required.

[pmeswani]

Bear in mind that lot of modern video cards take up a lot of real estate in your PC case and many require two slots width to accomodate the cooler fan and other hardware. Some cards are also very long, check for obstructions in the case. Lastly, modern video cards take al ot of power and they typically need supplementary power connectors in addituion to the juice they draw from the PCIe slot. Make sure that your power supply is upto the job and that it has the required connestors. I fitted a 1Gb DDR5 ATI 5750 card to my lads PC a few moths ago and upgraded the power supply to a 750 watt unit by Corsair to supply the power the card required.

Went to the Computer Fair after my earlier post. Toss up between the GeForce GT220 and the GeForce GT 430. I went for the GeForce GT 430 (GeForce GT 430) in the end. Had all the requirements I required, plus DDR3. Yep, would be nice to have DDR5, but not a must have. No additional power cord required.