Graphics cards

[burt]

what would be a good graphics card for around £70 my computer specs are


amd sempron 3000+
512mb ram


i want to be able to play games like half life 2

cheers if ya all can help

[ShyBoy]

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=4214006840&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=74655

I think that will be good for your money, though it is starting to show its age a little now, it will run half life 2 I'm pretty sure. If there are top notch games coming out though over the next year or two you may have to turn the settings down, but it's still a great card.

Although for the processer you have, if you want to really get your moneys worth then why not splash out on an Nvidia fx 6800 I think, they're good supposedly.

[Mist]

Originally posted by TheShyBoyInTheCorner

Although for the processer you have, if you want to really get your moneys worth then why not splash out on an Nvidia fx 6800 I think, they're good supposedly.

The 6800 cards are high end and may be too expensive. 6600 are mid range and may be more suited to this person's budget.

I have the 6800 GT and it's very good.

[MrG]

Inno3D 256MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 LE Video Card

www.kelkoo.co.uk

costs £68

i have it and it doesnt run everything at best quality in half life, but you can give it a nice jig with overclocking and works wonders

or works perfectly spot on as it is anyway

[burt]

Originally posted by MrG
Inno3D 256MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 LE Video Card

www.kelkoo.co.uk

costs £68

i have it and it doesnt run everything at best quality in half life, but you can give it a nice jig with overclocking and works wonders

or works perfectly spot on as it is anyway




i was looking at this card in pc world today but it was £100



can some one also answer what the diff between ati and navidia

[Dr Pirate]

Originally posted by burt
can some one also answer what the diff between ati and navidia

NVidia = Win

ATi = Lose

[MrG]

Originally posted by burt
i was looking at this card in pc world today but it was £100



can some one also answer what the diff between ati and navidia

look at www.kelkoo.co.uk

buy it off the net will be cheaper, pc world is a rip off

[ShyBoy]

Originally posted by burt
can some one also answer what the diff between ati and navidia

They're different companies. Depending on the market, at any given time, one is better than the other. Right now, mid-range cards are best with ATI, whereas top-range cards are best with NVidia. At least that is my opinion. It all comes down to opinion in the end :p

Same as do you prefer Pentium or Athlon (though Athlons are actually better :p)

[Mist]

Originally posted by burt
i was looking at this card in pc world today but it was £100



can some one also answer what the diff between ati and navidia

PC world may be cheaper online than in the shop.

ATI and NVIDIA are different chipset designers. The chipset is the core bits of the card, then different manufacturers will either copy the reference design for each card or add their own fancy bits to them to make them a bit different.

[wheresmyplacebo]

look on websites like

www.overclockers.co.uk - very reliable but slightly pricey for online but cheaper than shops
www.ebuyer.co.uk


look at top of screen graphics card here for example

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/FX5900_Series.html

only £108 + p&p

[Monserrat]

Originally posted by MrG
i have it and it doesnt run everything at best quality in half life, but you can give it a nice jig with overclocking and works wonders

I got the FX 5600. Tried overclocking that with the bundled software ("Winfox") and the games started to freeze. Clock it back to normal and the games worked o.k. again. Are there any recommended parameters to use or is it just trial-and-error?

The thing about Kelkoo.co.uk is that every time I run a search for computer componants, Kelkoo shows up as the top result. I therefore ignore it.

I always use www.computerprices.co.uk to compare prices now.

[Mist]

I don't overclock myself, but I think that the general advice is to keep going upwards until you experience glitches or crashing and then drop the speeds down by a few percent.

Or something.

[wheresmyplacebo]

Originally posted by Mist
I don't overclock myself, but I think that the general advice is to keep going upwards until you experience glitches or crashing and then drop the speeds down by a few percent.

Or something.

normally you can do up to a 30% clock speed boost if youre really lucky

normally 15% works alright though

for geforce cards, i use the coolbits regedit to enable me to overclock from display properties ---> settings -----> advanced

[MrG]

Originally posted by Monserrat
I got the FX 5600. Tried overclocking that with the bundled software ("Winfox") and the games started to freeze. Clock it back to normal and the games worked o.k. again. Are there any recommended parameters to use or is it just trial-and-error?

The thing about Kelkoo.co.uk is that every time I run a search for computer componants, Kelkoo shows up as the top result. I therefore ignore it.

I always use www.computerprices.co.uk to compare prices now.

the reason kelkoo somes up is because it comes up with everything, its a pretty good price comparing site

[Monserrat]

Placebo,

I've got as far as display properties, settings, advanced. I now get this page as shown below. Do you know where the Coolbits Regedits are on here? Thanks.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/monserrat/Upload/Gfxp.gif

[wheresmyplacebo]

this can invalidate warranties, and take it slowly in increasing like 5/10mhz at a time and if you notice glitches turn it down

Overclocking GeForce cards:

You can overclock all NVidia cards from within their newest drivers by doing a simple Registry edit to enable "Coolbits". Simply open the Windows Registry Editor by typing "regedit" in the Run Menu of Windows. Then open the following directory:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global

Right click on the "Global" key and create a new key called NVTweak. Next, right-click on the NVTweak key and create a new DWORD value named "Coolbits." Adjust the value of Coolbits to "3" by double clicking on it and entering "3" in the value data field.

Quit regedit and reboot the system. Now a new tab called "hardware options" will appear in the GeForce Additional Properties menu. (display properties > settings > advanced > GeForce> additional properties > hardware options). Go there to change the core and memory clock speeds.