I have never, in my entire life, done anything with a graphics card. (Just fair warning that you may have to explain everything as if to a two year old. Seriously, I'm totally new at this.) That being said, recently my fiance and I have gotten heavily into the wonderful world of MMORPGs, and they are the hell on our poor computer. Even when set to the lowest possible settings we get stuttering lag when we run into a heavily occupied zone. Also, I've recently gotten into DAZ 3D Studio, which requires some halfway decent graphics itself. I can't even run it on our comp. I have to use my laptop, which came with a nice ATI Radeon card preinstalled. My question to all of you experts is, what card do I need? I've been told the Radeon 4800 series is a good bet, but which one? I've had good luck with the card in my laptop so far, so I'd like to stick to Radeons if possible, unless something else is just so blow-me-outta-the-water that it's impossible to pass up. I NEED to stay under $300US, and preferably under $250US. The cheaper the better, as long as I can run both DAZ 3D Studio and City of Heroes (our preferred MMORPG) at full strength. I'd like to be able to sit on this card for a while, too. I don't want to have to upgrade before 2010! LOL Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Are you planning on upgrading your desktop computer? What kind is it and what are it's spec's? Pci, Or agp? "8.0.1 What are the system requirements for City of Heroes? Minimum System Specifications Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP Intel Pentium® III 800 MHz or AMD Athlon 800 MHz 256 MB RAM 4X CD-ROM Drive 2 GB Available HDD Space GeForce 2 Series or ATI Radeon 8500 Series Video Card DirectX 9.0 16-bit Sound Card 56k modem Keyboard and mouse Recommended System Specifications Windows® 2000/XP Intel Pentium® 4 1.7 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1700+ 512 MB RAM 16X CD-ROM Drive 2 GB Available HDD Space GeForce 5600 or ATI Radeon 9600 Series Video Card 16-bit Sound Card Broadband Internet Connection Keyboard and mouse with wheel"
Yeah, you should first let us know what are your computer's specs so we will know what to recommend. Older PCs can only support AGP cards but newer ones would be able to upgrade to PCI Express cards.
I'm sorry, I totally forgot to post the specs! Duh me. LOL I'm running a Dell Inspiron 530 with Intel Core 2 Duo 2Mb L2 @2.3Ghz, 2Gb DDR2 RAM, and the card currently in there is an integrated Intel something or another. I run Windows Vista (god help me). I took my computer apart last night and verified my graphics card slot is PCI-e. I took a chance on a good deal, actually, and bought this: cgi.ebay.com/HIS-Radeon-4850-512-pci-e-tested-as-new_W0QQitemZ270363079502QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item270363079502&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A15%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318 Hopefully someone here can tell me I wasn't a total dope.
Looks like a great card for your needs. Just be sure to go over to ati's website for the latest drivers and instructions on how to install it. Card is prety big, might be a tight squeeze in your case.
Is it simple enough to upgrade my case? I've seen decently priced mid and full sized towers at TigerDirect.com. If it's just a matter of an extra 50 bucks and some time to switch everything over, I could probably ugrade the case if the squeeze is just too tight for good air flow.
Changing your case is essentially re/building your whole PC pretty much. It's not too hard as long as you follow certain safety rules. Static discharge is a VERY real threat here in the US (dry air FTL).
consider a power supply upgrade, i think dell PC have like less than 400W power supplies, the last i check on a HP, it has like 300W power supply.
I was afraid my power supply might not be up to snuff. I'll have to price out some power supplies since I don't want some epic fail screwing up my components. Any idea how to tell what wattage I currently have? Would it be printed on the side of the supply? EDIT: Just looked on TigerDirect, in case I have to upgrade. Would this (BFG GS-550 ATX Power Supply - 550W, SATA-Ready BFGR550WGSPSU at TigerDirect.com) do, or would I have to go up to this (OCZ StealthXStream 600-Watt ATX 120mm Fan SATA-Ready PCI-e Ready Active PFC Power Supply OCZ600SXS at TigerDirect.com I don't think I need more than 600W, but I'm not entirely sure. Please advise?
I don't think it's possible to upgrade PSU on your Dell PC since it is most likely using customised form factor.
In other words, I may have to upgrade both my power supply AND my case? Goodness, I didn't realize getting a new graphics card was such an involved process. LOL I guess it's a good thing I got the card so cheap. I'll need the rest of the budget to make sure I can use it!
Well, Dell casings and the PSUs are proprietary and quite exclusive - only Dell PSUs can fit into the Dell casings. I'm not pretty sure whether did they have still changed the design, but I could guess it'll be impossible to put a PSU inside if it's not fit.
You shouldn't buy dell if you intend to have a major upgrade. But I think the 300W PSU should work fine. Try if first before you buy anymore.
Could I damage anything by trying the existing PSU w/the card? I don't want my $85 PSU upgrade to turn into a $600 new computer. (I found an e-tailer who sells Dell-compatible PSUs.) EDIT: By the way, got the new card, it fits in my case all right. I just have to be careful with wire placement, which isn't a problem. But I was expecting this but I received this. Does the casing make any appreciable difference for good or ill? I wasn't even aware they came without cases, as the Google search I'd done on the ebay listing always came up with websites that showed the cased card.
