When I was upgrading to a new system this is the advice I got about video cards. Reading top to bottom the lower you go the better the video card.
Quote:
Hope that helps.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
If you believe the marketing, it offers C.risp A.nd R.esponsive P.erformance
No, subtlety is not one of my strong points. To run all Ultra Mode options at once in 1680*1050 the starting point is around a AMD RadeonHD 4850 / Nvidia Geforce GTS 250. These have the respective theoretical throughput rates of
**I've never actually seen a 4730 for sale. On paper it has the shader and texture power to execute the OpenGL 3.0 calls in the 1280*720 resolution range. ***As far as I am aware the 4770 was only sold with a 512mb memory configuration. The card also had a 128-bit memory bus. While it's not far off from the 4850 in terms of theoretical power, the memory configuration places this cards target resolution more for 1280*720 For the Nvidia architecture these include:
*the Geforce 8800 series has the shader and texture power to execute Ultra Mode Code, but memory counts of 256mb and 512mb of local video memory really cuts into the ability of the cards to render Ultra Mode in high resolutions The list of mobile cards that can render in ultra mode is significant shorter:
Now, I have the well publicized opinion that most of the Geforce cards are rip-offs. Outside of the Geforce GTX 460, pretty much the entire street price for Nvidia cards are way over-priced compared to AMD cards with similar frame-per-second performance: http://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/ Case in point: Nvidia wants $500 for the GTX 580. However, in realistic gameplay, the $500 msrp GTX 580 doesn't actually buy you higher resolutions, more anti-aliasing, or better texture quality... compared to a RadeonHD 6970 with an MSRP of $369, and a street price only a few bucks more. So... what are you spending nearly $125+ for? Best as I can figure, a little badge that says Nvidia. One of the problems with my opinion is that Nvidia offers huge discounts to OEM vendors in order to keep system price parity with AMD offerings. So, if you are buying a pre-built computer from a major OEM like Dell, HP, or Gateway, their computers won't have the price / performance discrepancy you'll find in the add-in card market. So it's very possible that you'll find one of the card listed here available in a pre-built system for not much off an equivelent AMD card. |
Thx Forbin. It helps a little. I am really just trying to figure out if the thing will go in my comp. I am not expecting performance, just stability. It's the backup comp. With a 6-7 year old Dell mid-range tower only so many things are possible.
Someone should be along sooner or later that can tell you if the thing will fit or not. That's beyond my amount of knowledge, which could fit in a thimble.
The jury seems to be weighing heavily in that I need moah powah, and I'll take that advice. Blowing up a rig, even an old one, seems a little silly. My other question is whether the card will physically fit in the box. I'm leaning towards having a friend do the work or heading down to a local comp shop I trust. If i can milk two or three more years out of the old beast with a free card a $50.00 powers source and less than a $100.00 in other fees I am gonna call it a big win. Especially if it can run the card, which evidently was pretty sweet in it's day.
The link in your original post is not valid. But web searching took me to the Dell Dimension that most likely is what you have. Will it fit in the case?-- yes. Do you need a new power supply? If the video card does not require a power connection from the power supply, then no, you don't need a new power supply. If it does, then you need to look at the specs of the power supply and the requirements of the video card. Things like max wattage and max sustained output. Without actually knowing what the power supply is or what the video card requires, I cannot advise more than that.
We recently got a new comp (yeah) that is decent, but will not run CoH in Ultra. Got big tax money plans for that in a month or two. But that (for the 1st time) gave us 2 boxes and my wife joined the community, playing Premium and teaming with me. Our old tower is.... yeah.
Here is the situation and the question. A friend gave us a E-V3A E-GeForce 8800 GT and I was wondering if that would go into our old tower. It is a Dell Dimension DV051 ACPI MultiProcessor (Intel Pent4 3.06ghz) w 2gig ram (Win XP 2002) My main questions are 1) does this tower have enough power to run this graphics car 2) Does anyone know if it will physically fit in an old Dell Dimension 3) will the drivers install 4) is this a decent card for running CoH ps, it could hardly be any worse running the City than what it is now lol.
Any help is appreciated. My wife gets the new machine when we duo and it would be nice to not be fighting the old machine so much as I try to help her enjoy our wonderful game.
I'm 95% sure this is my Dell Specs
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1052310
It looks like I need a PCI slot, and it has one. Both the board and hte card are from the right Era (both are ancient by todays standards) so I'm giving myself a 50/50 that it will fit in physically. The next big question s power supply. The GeForce 8800 GT is actually a power miser by GeForce standards it seems, but I am still unsure if I can drive it with this box. I am 99% sure I can get drivers if it will physically work. Seriously, any help would be great.