I'm upgrading a new PC and wondering if its worth getting a 128MB graphics card...

eatingrich

hey, i'm buying my bro-in-laws pc off him, its a 1.8ghz system (think its athlon). 512MB RAM (think probably pc133), soundcard and all that jazz. i need to add my own hard drive (got a 20gig one spare though) and possibliy graphics card depending on if he gets his new one sorted out. if he does then i'll get his 64mb agp graphics card and if he doesn't then i'll be using my 32mb agp graphics card

basically i'll be using this pc for mostly old games (but also through dosbox which sucks up power) and office etc and maybe abit of photoshop if i get the software, and i'm wondering if its worth getting a 128mb card just to round off the system so to speak, or if whatever i use will suffice on a 64mb card in line with the rest of the system.

i'm thinking if i get the 32mb card i'll definately be better off upgrading to at least a 64mb card, but to be honest the most recent game i own that i'll be playing on it will be morrowind, but thats got an infamous memory leak in it too.

so what do you think? if i did go for a 128mb graphics card i think i'd go for a cheap one, any recommendations?

personally i think it'll be fine with what i've got presuming its 64mb at least, but i thought i'd ask the resident genius' on this forum which is my source of all computer knowledge!

Asmoday

If you want a cheap decent performing 128mb card, i recommend the 9600pro it will play the older games you speak of without breaking a sweat. Including many newer ones too for that matter.

mkk

The amount of graphics memory does not mean as much as the type of card. Although most 128MB cards are noticeably better than most 64MB cards, there are exceptions. What type of card do you currently have and what type of card is the one you would get if your inlaw brother could make his new card work?

Drakon

a cheap 9800 pro would do well

Bruuce

What not to buy: GeforceFX 5600 256mb. Stay far away from this card!!

riles9262

A 9600/pro/xt are very good 128mb cards for the money. 9700/9800 are even better if you get a deal. For nv cards, a 6600 would work well too.

Tipstaff

Gotta agree with this, but I would get the 6600GT instead of the plain vanilla card... better performance.

-Tip

Son_of_Thunder

btw, if the system is a 1.8ghz athlon it's more than likely either pc2100 or pc2700 ram in there, not pc133.

i agree w/ the other people here, stay away from the geforce 5xxx lineup, get a radeon 9600pro or better, and if you do go for nvidia don't get anything worse than the 6600.

if you MUST go w/ a geforce 5xxx card get the fx5900xt, it's pretty good for the money, it's performance is somewhere between the 9600xt and the 9700pro i believe.

Matth

Depends what the 32Mb is (probably something lightweight, at best a full Geforce 2) - eg. a card from the DirectX 7 era.

The 64Mb, well, it could be a low end card with more memory than makes sense for it, or it could be a 64Mb version of a DirectX8 era card (Geforce 4 Ti4200, Radeon 8500) - in which case, it would probably put up a good showing against anything CHEAP now.

Unless you fear AGP being sidelined in favour of PCI Express (a while yet, I'd say), then price/performance may have a notch or 2 further to improve, so unless you have nothing, I'd generally favour playing a waiting game, and watching for specials.

The_Neon_Cowboy

just get a 128 or 256mb card... the memory on the card will be runing much faster then the pc's...
if you get a 64m card it will use you slow as dirt system ram to store alot of textures...slowing it down

true most of anything you'll get will be held back by your system
how much are you looking to spend?