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#1
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Need advice to buy a new video card.
This PC is used to do tax, email and browse the Internet. No
gaming. It is running Windows 2000 now. With most tax software not supporting Windows 2000 any more, I have to upgrade to new version of Windows this year. I am thinking to upgrade to Vista, instead of XP. But right now its video card has only 64MB video memory. I have to install a new video card to meet Vista 128MB minimal requirement. The motherboard supports AGP 2.0 (AGP 2x/4x). What new video card from ATI can I put it to my PC safely? If the current generation of ATI only support AGP 8X, I could buy an used one from EBay. Thanks for any recommendation. |
#2
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Need advice to buy a new video card.
"Ar Q" wrote in message ... This PC is used to do tax, email and browse the Internet. No gaming. It is running Windows 2000 now. With most tax software not supporting Windows 2000 any more, I have to upgrade to new version of Windows this year. I am thinking to upgrade to Vista, instead of XP. But right now its video card has only 64MB video memory. I have to install a new video card to meet Vista 128MB minimal requirement. The motherboard supports AGP 2.0 (AGP 2x/4x). What new video card from ATI can I put it to my PC safely? If the current generation of ATI only support AGP 8X, I could buy an used one from EBay. Thanks for any recommendation. Vista does not require a 128Mb graphics card to run.....it only needs 128Mb of video RAM and a WDM DX 9 card with Pixel Shader 2.0 support to run Aero. The 64Mb card will be fine....as for the rest of your setup running Vista....from what you're saying, a mainboard that supports AGP 2.0 sounds like it's a PIII class board or AMD equivalent. Not exactly Vista material.....WinXP would be more practical for an upgrade if you're sticking to the old hardware. |
#3
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Need advice to buy a new video card.
"Augustus" wrote in message news:A8E2l.881$Ve.341@edtnps82... | | "Ar Q" wrote in message | ... | This PC is used to do tax, email and browse the Internet. No | gaming. It is running Windows 2000 now. With most tax software not | supporting Windows 2000 any more, I have to upgrade to new version | of Windows this year. | | I am thinking to upgrade to Vista, instead of XP. But right now | its video card has only 64MB video memory. I have to install a new | video card to meet Vista 128MB minimal requirement. The | motherboard supports AGP 2.0 (AGP 2x/4x). What new video card from | ATI can I put it to my PC safely? If the current generation of ATI | only support AGP 8X, I could buy an used one from EBay. Thanks for | any recommendation. | | Vista does not require a 128Mb graphics card to run.....it only needs 128Mb | of video RAM and a WDM DX 9 card with Pixel Shader 2.0 support to run Aero. | The 64Mb card will be fine....as for the rest of your setup running | Vista....from what you're saying, a mainboard that supports AGP 2.0 sounds | like it's a PIII class board or AMD equivalent. Not exactly Vista | material.....WinXP would be more practical for an upgrade if you're sticking | to the old hardware. | It is indeed PIII. But it is top of its class. Dual Tualatin 1.4GHz x 2. Video card is AIW8500DV. I think an upgrade on video card may improve system performance because of more video RAM. I do play game occasionally, but only the strategy games. No 3D game at all. Is ATI Radeon 1650 a good card for my system? Thanks. |
#4
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Need advice to buy a new video card.
It is indeed PIII. But it is top of its class. Dual Tualatin
1.4GHz x 2. Video card is AIW8500DV. I think an upgrade on video card may improve system performance because of more video RAM. I do play game occasionally, but only the strategy games. No 3D game at all. Is ATI Radeon 1650 a good card for my system? Upgrading this system to an X1650 Pro to get better performance will result in basically no increase in overall system and application performance unless synthetic benchmarks and 3D games are your main purpose. Increased video ram past the very low amount needeed for 24/32 bit 2D display only benefits 3D games and other 3D apps. And these will be very CPU limited with twin 1.4 Ghz PIII processors. AGP functionality with the X1650 Pro and Catalysts past 7.5 is hit and miss. Still hasn't been fixed for many. Dual 1.4 Tualatins are fine for your productivity and limited gaming needs. Put Vista on that box and you'll regret it.Win XP SP3 is what's desirable. I would not bother switching out that AIW 8500DV for what your needs are. To get an idea how Vista Home Premium would run on that PIII dual Tualatin 1.4Ghz box, think about how your current system running Windows 2000 feels and then imagine that your system was Windows 2000 running on a single PIII 733EB with 256Mb of RAM. If you think this is an exagerration, please feel free to try it out and see..... |
#5
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Need advice to buy a new video card.
* Ar Q:
I am thinking to upgrade to Vista, instead of XP. But right now its video card has only 64MB video memory. I have to install a new video card to meet Vista 128MB minimal requirement. The motherboard supports AGP 2.0 (AGP 2x/4x). What new video card from ATI can I put it to my PC safely? If the current generation of ATI only support AGP 8X, I could buy an used one from EBay. Thanks for any recommendation. AGP is dead for over three years now, and only few AGP cards are made at all. With just an dual P3 1.4GHz Tualatin, buying a new gfx card is just a waste of money. And on such a slow and old setup, the amount of video RAM is probably the smallest problem. Benjamin |
#6
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Need advice to buy a new video card.
* Augustus:
To get an idea how Vista Home Premium would run on that PIII dual Tualatin 1.4Ghz box, think about how your current system running Windows 2000 feels and then imagine that your system was Windows 2000 running on a single PIII 733EB with 256Mb of RAM. If you think this is an exagerration, please feel free to try it out and see..... While I agree with your comments regarding a video card upgrade, Vista on P3 hardware is not as bad as it sounds. I had (and have) Vista running on different P3 hardware. It runs fine (not really slower than Windowsxp) if enough RAM is available, especially if Aero is disabled. With 1GB RAM, Vista is a bit slower than Windowsxp, with 1.5GB or more the performance is around the same. While most single processor P3 systems were limited to 1GB or even less, dual CPU setups usually use chipset that supports at least 2GB. One problem is ACPI support, though. Unlike Windowsxp which can fall back to the old PnP BIOS standard Vista requires full ACPI support. Lots of P3 computers come with crap or no ACPI support at all. Especially standard mobos of these days don't support ACPI very well, I found that brand name systems from the P3 generation (IBM Aptiva, Dell Optiplex/Precision/Dimension etc) usually come with much better ACPI support. So if the dual P3 Tualatin setup has enough memory (at least 1.5GB) and supports ACPI, I'd go for Vista over Windowsxp any time. Benjamin |
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