Is this a good Graphics Card for my needs?

[jamesd1981]

your board will handle almost any intel 775 socket cpu, right up to quad cores etc, no it doesn`t work that way hosick, but its a common theory people have, if its a 2ghz dual core, it doesn`t make it a 4ghz, it just means the two cores work independantly but they are both running 2ghz max

 

[Hosick]

Would you be able to shed some light on what the difference is between a Chipset Family, and a Graphics Card?

 

[Hosick]

If you say right up to quad cores, does that mean i can just do away with mine and get a single core? I'm assuming a dual or quad core is more expensive but doesn't offer that much improvement.

 

[CardboardSword]

If you say right up to quad cores, does that mean i can just do away with mine and get a single core? I'm assuming a dual or quad core is more expensive but doesn't offer that much improvement.

Why would you do that? A good quad core or even a solid dual core would be a pretty significant upgrade in your case. Unfortunately its probably not a cost effective one.

Another issue that you've managed to sidestep in the discussion here is the issue of your power supply. Store bought PCs have relatively low quality parts in them to maximize profits for the company, and they aren't intended to game. Unfortunately this means the computer is built with a power supply that can only handle what the computer is built with and little more. Graphics cards are one of the most power hungry components of any computer, which is why most computers not intended for gaming use much more energy and cost efficient integrated chipsets (I'll get to more on those in a second.). Where I'm going with this is that your power supply is likely woefully inadequate for powerful new hardware like a graphics card. If you take the side off of your case, and look at the top where the power cable plugs in, you should see a sticker with the details of your power supply on it. I'd bet its between 180w and 250w, and I'm leaning towards the lower end of the spectrum here. To put this in perspective for you, the card you linked is recommended at LEAST a quality 450w unit. Even lower end solutions will still require at least 350w.

Finally, your question about the difference in display adapters. Chipsets are low-power (Both in electricity consumption and rendering power) solutions that are built in to the motherboard of your computer and share the resources of the rest of your system, primarily ram. They are cost effective to make and they do everything most users would want to do with them (E-mail, YouTube and your usual stuff.) A dedicated card however consumes much more power, and is respectively much more powerful. It is a card inserted into the PCI-E 16x slot on your motherboard and has its own resources to use instead of relying on your systems (There are some exceptions which use both system and dedicated memory.). Installing a graphics card in a system can also improve performance of the system in general, as it frees up the previously used memory by the chipset.

 

[Hosick]

Thanks for all this information. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be getting much better!
Is there any way that i can increase my power? I really don't want to have to just buy a new PC, but i will do whatever it takes, up to a budget of about £200 now, to get some decent work out of this machine.

I understand that, in computer terms, £200 is not much, but then again i don't have too much!

 

[jamesd1981]

you do seem to have alot to do overall hosick and i wouldnt say its worth spending £200 on the pc you have, if you have a £200 budget, why dont you sell your current pc, and add the money from that to you budget bound to give you at least £300, you can pick up a good 2nd hand dual or quad core system for that price, or if you think you could do it, you could build a not bad brand new system for that

 

[CardboardSword]

Another option is to buy a new power supply and graphics card. Your CPU is pretty weak, but games are mostly limited by the graphics card anyway, so that will only be an issue in some games. Your budget would allow you to upgrade the parts you need, but it may not be worth your time. However, with the new hardware, you can hang on to it when you do decide to sell your computer and upgrade whatever you get right away. The only thing you need to watch out for is that some brands like to use proprietary power supplies (Ones that don't fit in anything that isn't a Dell for example, either physically or with the vital connectors.). Dell is the worst for this, but some other brands have been known to do it as well. If this is the case, I'd sell it in a heartbeat and see how much that nets you.

 

[Hosick]

I have decided actually to just sell my laptop. I don't know how much i should get for it, it's not even as good as my PC. But i should get maybe, £50 for it at least, i think i got it second-hand for 90-something. It's an ex-government machine, i've noticed recently that it's the same one my teachers are given. But it is not suited to playing games at all, you saw, in fact told me, how bad my PC is - games play worse on this than on the PC!
I should have about £300-400 extra pretty soon, on top of my ~100 i planned to use on a graphics card.

So i think that put together should get me a pretty good laptop.
(i was going to use it to by a deactivated rifle, but oh well!)

I feel a bit better knowing that with the segments of information i actually understand from what you've all told me, i can pick myself something pretty good!

Correct me if i'm wrong, but with a new piece of hardware popping up every day, i think now it's got to, buying my original £95 Graphics Card, upgrading my RAM and CPU, and now getting a high-grade power supply, i think it will be better just to start over and get a decent machine.
This should also be a good bit easier, seeing as i evidently know very little about PCs, just buying one with the good parts already in it.


Do you think i would be able to get a laptop capable of playing games with good graphics, with my new budget of about £500? And please let me know if my assumption of ~£50 for my current laptop is a bit off.

 

[Hosick]

Sorry, i made a bad assumption there that brilliant 'gameplaying' laptops actually exist.

But if they do, do you think with my budget i could get one that would play a game such as Arma 2? The graphics on that are very high and it has very open gameplay, etc.
If you have played it, let me know what you think. I think Arma 2 would be the limit, if a laptop can play Arma 2 with decent speed and graphics, then it's good!

 

[Russ88765]

Sorry, i made a bad assumption there that brilliant 'gameplaying' laptops actually exist.

But if they do, do you think with my budget i could get one that would play a game such as Arma 2? The graphics on that are very high and it has very open gameplay, etc.
If you have played it, let me know what you think. I think Arma 2 would be the limit, if a laptop can play Arma 2 with decent speed and graphics, then it's good!

Gaming laptops exist, but generally they are $1500 and up. As for what it will take to run specific games, you can usually look the game up and find out system requirements. The things to have are memory, graphics, and cpu above all else.

Building a gaming laptop is possible but not entirely recommended for beginners, but if you wanted to you would be looking for a barebones laptop. You'd have to find laptop parts elsewhere though, and since most places sell laptops as complete units due to their proprietary circuitry- it won't be easy to find parts for them.

 

[CardboardSword]

In short, God no. "Gaming laptops" are more of a marketing gimmick. Anything that will even be able to come close to desktop performance will be thousands of dollars/pounds. For 500 you wouldn't be looking at a very powerful laptop at all I'm afraid. However a respectable desktop can be built (or purchased) for that price. I'll admit I'm not familiar with European pricing, but regardless of where you are, you'll pay a premium for an underpowered laptop.

Arma 2 itself is a pretty demanding game, and no laptop within your budget will be able to play it as smoothly as a similarly priced desktop. I would like to add that expensive doesn't always mean better in the PC market either. If you provide links to sites you like to use then I'll be more than happy to walk you through what you're looking for. However after looking around some UK sites, it appears even with the increased budget things are going to be pretty tight. I put together a very respectable mid-high-range computer but it came to ~635. Your best bet seems like it would be save up just a little longer. You could find a system that'll fit the 500 pound budget, but you'll have to sacrifice things that would hurt in the long run. You could save money if you built it yourself, and its really not that hard, but you don't seem comfortable with such an idea, so I won't push it on you.

 

[jamesd1981]

you can buy barebone laptop kits from the states, you get the main laptop unit with screen keyboard, motherboard etc, and toy add you own, cpu, memory, hdd, optical drive, and in some a gpu, which you can just use standard laptop parts not specialist

 

[Hosick]

So let me know if i can actually get a good laptop for £500-600 max. ($800-950)
The information i've learnt here should help me a lot.

I don't mean to be rude but i don't want to start building my own laptop. For a start, i don't think i physically could. I just want to buy one. I know this has also gone a lot off-topic, starting with graphics cards, but i still appreciate any advice

 

[jamesd1981]

oh yeah defo at that price you could have a pick of good laptops, although you would get far more for your money for a desktop

 

[predicament]

So I take it your 100% commited on buying a laptop, rather than a desktop?

I say this because the performance of a £700 laptop will come nowhere near a £700 pound desktop.

 

[Russ88765]

There are some very capable laptops out there, but like stated above they are a lot of money. It helps if you know what to look for: 4-8gb 1333 ram, quadcore cpu that can go to 3ghz, mobile gtx video cards, etc. It also helps to have a good amount of space for games, 500gb-1tb is decent, small ssd optional but recommended. Personally I think the Sager x7200 is the best laptop i've ever seen hands down, but the Asus g73 is a nice option too because of it's overclock options and more reasonable cost.

Keep in mind though a laptop that can run games of high caliber are very expensive, so looking on ebay or google products for the best price on what you need specwise is the best bet. The term "gaming laptop" is a bit of a marketing term, but it's also a way of knowing that a specific laptop has the right specs you're looking for. Alienware is okay, but massively overpriced. The hardware available for their laptops is average at best, and never really impressed me. If I was going to invest the kind of money you need for a true beast of a laptop, I would want something better- so it would be the Sager without a doubt.

Your budget though, you would have to save awhile longer before considering such a serious investment. It depends what you find online though, check for cheapest prices.

 

[Hosick]

I'm sorry if i sound rude, but you don't really seem to understand;
You are all being very helpful, and giving good advice, but for example, on a scale of 1 - 10, if i have a laptop of 1 or 2, i don't need one of 7 or 8, which will be too expensive. A 4 or 5 will do.
I made a mistake earlier, i just realised; my laptop was about £190, not £90, or whatever i said.
I think "gaming laptop" was a bad way to put it. I don't want something that will cost loads and give me the privilege of playing good, fast games, i want something that will let me play games.
Remember my laptop doesn't even have a graphics card, it has a cheap chipset. So even one with any sort of graphics card will be an improvement.

I actually tried to play Company of Heroes again today, and surprisingly it played okay, a bit slow, but by all means playable. With average graphics.

What i am trying to say, as i am finding it very hard to explain, is that i have a £200 second-hand laptop. So if i go into a computer shop, trade in my current laptop for maybe, £100, add another 100 to it - there you go - i'm back at my current laptop's price; so if i add another £200 to that there's bound to be some improvement.
I understand and listen to the people who said that price doesn't always mean quality, but i must be right to some degree -- if i see a laptop at, say £250, and there's one beside it at £450, the 450 one will be better.
I am not looking to get the best, i'm just wanting to get average.
Actually, that's a better way to describe it:
Of [worst]1, 2, 3[best], i currently have 1, i want 2, i have no real need for 3.

I hope this explains it a bit better.

I am sorry for sort of contradicting a few of your comments.

 

[CardboardSword]

No that makes a lot of sense now, I just thought you were aiming a little higher. A laptop is still not your best bet, but I understand not everyone can deal with not having the mobility provided in a laptop. I'd say look around the top of your budget, you should be able to get an i3 based laptop for that. Your main concern is, like you already said, getting a computer with a dedicated card and not a chipset. That pretty much depends on what your local stores carry, so its more or less out of our hands, but those should at least be some decent guidelines.

 

[Hosick]

----

 

[Russ88765]

Second one is okay, with about an average graphics card and processor. I wouldn't expect much from it regarding games though. The first one has a slightly better cpu, but the graphics is entry level.