Question on video cards

[Coolio]

Hey, im planning on buying a new video card. I currently own a Verto geforce4 MX/Ti VGA PCI. Well, my budget is between 100-130 U$S. I only use it for gaming. Could someone recommend some video cards?
Thanks

[DaSoviet]

This is the card I'd recommend, although it is a bit over you budget, its worth it.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10387999&loc=101&sp=1

Also, which slot do you have on your motherboard?
Make sure you don't make the mistake I did and bought a PCI-express only to find that the slot on my motherboard was AGP :grin

[Coolio]

i got PCI.

[DarkAce]

You don't have an agp slot Coolio?

[BigPheces]

Unfortunately, it seems that you have a standard PCI graphics card, which is often seen in "off the shelf" systems. This is NOT to be confused with PCIe, also known as PCI Express. With your motherboard, you have no choice but to get another PCI graphics card, which are not only hard to find, but seriously lacking in performance when compared to AGP or PCIe cards.
I hate to say it, but your best bet is to save cash and buy yourself a new motherboard, which will inevitably lead to a new processor and probably new memory also. THEN you can buy your new graphics card.... damn I hate computers.

[Mezurashi]

2 years ago a friend and I made a wager. I purchased a G4 iMac (the kind that looks like an upside down bowl with a flatscreen attached by a chrome dildo) and he purchased some badly named and acronymed Dell product. He paid about $500.00 CDN less for his system than I paid for mine.

2 years later - I have put an additional $500.00 into my baby (software, memory, trackball, scanner, etc) but she still hums along like day one. no issues or problems, haven't had a single virus, trojan or worm, no crashes, no downtime to speak of (other than restarts after software upgrades).

my bud has now spent $3000.00 getting an Entire New System to replace the Dell system. Before he spent the cash he invested an additional $1500 - 2500 into his Dell to replace half the hardware, repair the viruses, trojans and worms rampaging through his system. This does not take into account the amount of lost time and effort of his doing whatever on his PC only to have it crash just before he saved his data. Or having saved the data discovering it had been so fragmented that it was effectively randomized. Or having someone ride in and start messing with his system because his personal wireless network had been compromised. the last time I sopke with him (48 hours ago) he'd been without PC for a week due to a fried video card. he estimates the Dell gave him One Hour of Uptime for every Three Hours of Downtime (de-fragmentation, disc scans, sweeps, disinfecting, etc).

yet every time I argue with PC types about the beauty of Apple I always hear how cheap, expensive, crappy and lousy Apple computers are.

I guess the whole 'PC' tag might be more relevant across genre's than I suspected. How else can one explain So Many supposedly 'smart' people who'd rather waste half their lives getting their computers to work so they can be frustrated by its lack of performance the other half?

and before I get flamed by PC'ers outraged by my claims - can you honestly say you have not had a single infection or system crash in the past year? I haven't and my iMac is Always up and running, always logged on and always processing something (SETI, Human Genome, etc.).

[dcookcan]

I used several Macintosh computers in university before switching to the IBM clone world. (I hate to use the term "PC" because it stands for "personal computer" and the Mac definately fits into that category.) Macintosh computers are excellent machines and they are definately not cheap. My problem with the Macs was not with the machine but with the limited software available. Engineering software for the mac (at least at that time) was simply non-existant. Computer games were also limited and more expensive, if available. However, macs have their place especially in sound and video applications.

My latest computer is an AMD Athlon 64 2800, with lotsa bells and whistles. I built it myself. I have not had any stability issues with the computer and no viruses or worms have invaded, yet. Stability is generally affected by computer hardware and software upgrades (and viruses). If the computer is off the shelf name brand, then it is not worthwhile (in general) to upgrade due to architecture compatability.

Do a little research into components and architecture before upgrading. Intel processors generally do better with Radeon graphics cards and AMD processors generally work better with GeForce cards. Here are a couple sites I recommend for researching components and compatability:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/index.html
http://www.pcworld.com/index/0,00.asp

[Coolio]

I used norton's system information:

Processor:GenuineIntel Family 15 Model 2 1.8 GHz Stepping 9
BIOS: AMIINT - 10, 11/04/03
BUS type: PCI, ISA, USB
Ports: 1 Parallel, 2 Serial
Memory: 480 MB (53% Utilized)
OS: 5.1 (Build 2600)