budget hl2 playable graphics card

[icarus7495]

'ola

a friend of mine is hoping to upgrade his computer its all good but it needs more ram and a new graphics card. were looking budget here, hoping not to spend more than £60. hes only looking to have it running at a "playable level" not ugly as f**k but no need for akk specials.

SPECS:

1.7ghz processor, nt sure as of yt which
512 ram, considering upgrade
currently geforce 4 mx, hence the upgrade

cheers

 

[duffers20]

I would advice your friend to save up for a 9600XT card, that would be pretty good. The card costs around £100 and would play hl2 at a decent level of detail that shouldn't slow it down too much.

Here is one on overclockers.co.uk, the Connect3D ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-025-CO).
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/9500_to_9600_Series.html

 

[furiousV]

or for £120 you could get a Radeon 9800 Pro, yet thats twice your budget

 

[icarus7495]

indeed it is, i heard also unless the chip super power it cant really make use of the 256 mem genrally causin slower speeds, ne other suggestions?

suppose 75 is upper limit of the budget tho.

 

[oni_666]

64mb Geforce Ti4200.
If your in the UK, you should get one from Pc world for £60 new, or second hand for £30.
Make sure you get the 64mb version and not the 128mb version, The 128mb versions generally use slower ram, i.e. 4 or 5ns ram, whereas a 64mb version will use 3.4 to 3.6ns ram, and you'll easily overclock it on its standard cooling to a level faster than a Ti4400.
Or if you don't like Geforces, Get a ATI 9600 Pro, their pretty cheap now, and pretty fast too.

 

[icarus7495]

64mb Geforce Ti4200.

ATI 9600 Pro

will these run hl2?

 

[furiousV]

i dont know if it will run hl2
gte a Radeon 9550 256MB, that was my first card. at first it cost £80 or so, but you can get cheaper now, i think in the £60-70 range if not cheaper. it will play hl2 well enough on 1024x768.
their memory bandwidth is not as great as the 9800s, i think 128bit, but they do the job, and are fully dx9.

 

[Asus]

Make sure you get the 64mb version and not the 128mb version, The 128mb versions generally use slower ram, i.e. 4 or 5ns ram, whereas a 64mb version will use 3.4 to 3.6ns ram, and you'll easily overclock it on its standard cooling to a level faster than a Ti4400.

I know when they first came out that was the thing to do but now games can easily use more than 64mb so that might not be the wise choice.

9600/pro/xt would be what I'd suggest personally. Not the SE.

 

[DrDevin]

For your budget I would suggest an ATI Radeon 9550 for £64 I believe. Check these benchmarks out if you need proof:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281&p=4

You would be better off spending more money so you would get a much better card for only a little bit more but this should suit your needs for now. The store I would this card at is located here:

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merc...e=M&Product_Code=190435&Category_Code=ALL-ATI

 

[the_lone_wolf]

personally i play with all the settings on high, including reflect world, on 1280/1024 and get playable framerates on my 9600pro, very happy with it, if i had the cash i'd have a 6600 i expect but this is the way things are, the performance of this card has surprised me greatly. other options are the older but faster 9500/9700 pro models, but whatever you do don't get an "SE" model