need video card cheap and good

pdc76

pdc76

New Member
hey guys, helping out a friend. he's got a dell and wants to be able to play some games and stuff, so he brought it to me to see what i could do.

it's a pentium dual core with ddr2, onboard video and a pcie-x16 slot. he only had 512mb ram, and i bumped him up to 2gb. i want to put a video card in it, but he only has like $50-60 max to spend.

i'm not too familiar with that range of video cards, and there seems to be a million of them. what would you recommend? ebay is an option. oh, he's running vista premium.

thanks guys.
 
What kinda power supply is in the computer, if its a cheap noname power supply then chances are the max you could go would be something like a 4550 or 9500gt.
 
i am replacing the psu for him, as it went bad. he asked while i had it if i could do anything to make it run a little better. i think i have a 450 laying around, it's out of a dell or hp or something, def no name. i was thinking 9400-9500. i'd like it to be a dx10 card.


edit: i just found a 9500gt card on ebay for $50 shipped, so i went ahead and grabbed it. it's got an onboard hdmi port too.
 
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i just got this 9500 gt 512mb today. it says minimum 400w power supply. why would newegg say 350w? i put a 350w in there. will it be ok? he doesn't really game on it, other than web based flash games and stuff. he will be watching movies on it though.
 
It depends what the specs are on the 350W PSU. The 9500GT doesn't draw a whole lot of power, so the 350W would support it, but it would probably nice to get some more headroom if you had the option.
 
i got the psu from staples. it's an antec basiq 350w. the card seems to be running ok with it. i didn't try it out on any games, but i ran the windows performance thing and a 3d screensaver and it didn't crash. i guess it'll be ok.
 
pdc76 said:
i got the psu from staples. it's an antec basiq 350w. the card seems to be running ok with it. i didn't try it out on any games, but i ran the windows performance thing and a 3d screensaver and it didn't crash. i guess it'll be ok.
Click to expand...

Antec basiq 350w should run a 9500gt just fine, its relatively low power.
 
lovely? said:
Ya just remember to update the drivers.
Click to expand...
Not always the case.

I bought a brand new 8600GTS and the latest drivers for the GeForce cards
would give me "plaid" crosshairs on my screen in game.

I had to revert to the previous driver version to use the card.

Try the newest drivers, but if you have issues, remember to uninstall them
and try an older version.
 
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