Video Card

[jx3k]

I plan on grabbing a copy of Half-Life 2 and/or CSS as soon as my highspeed internet connection gets installed (which will be an immense blessing). I recently upgraded my computers ram from 256mb to 768mb. My computer still has the stock graphics card (a 64mb ddr nvidia geforce4 mx 420) and I know I'll need to upgrade to play these games. Can someone recommend a decently priced graphics card that will play these games some what smoothly. My budget is limited so the cheaper the better. Thanks.

Specs:
Dell Dimesion 4550 series
Windows XP
768mb ddr pc2700
Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz

 

[Beerdude26]

Well, the Radeon series from ATI is pretty good:
http://www.ati.com/products/gamer.html
Although you should go for the 9600-9800 cards, because they're mid-range cards that are very well priced (120-180$).
But I'm an ATI fanboy, so my view may be a bit biased there
ATI advice : Stay away from the "SE" cards. They're horrible budget cards. The "Pro" is a bit better and the "XT" cards are the best. If you get yourself a card by Sapphire or any other company that's well-known for good cards, you'll probably be able to overclock your stock card to a "Pro" or an "XT".

But there's also nVidia :
http://www.nvidia.com/page/desktop.html#gaming
nVidia is making a strong comeback using their top-of-the-line gaming cards that come at a very good price. Their mid-range cards are still a bit expensive, but you'll get a lot of bang for your buck. (6600-6800 GT)
nVidia advice : I don't know too much about the types of cards nVidia has, so you'll just have to ask that elsewhere or wait until someone else waltzes by

EDIT: Aww, your motherboard only support 4X/2X AGP bus speed
That will reduce performance a tad on ATI cards, and might limit those nVidia cards heavily (because they take more bus bandwidth to give more performance).

 

[jx3k]

Ebay has ATI Radeon 9800 Pros goin for as low as $60. Is that a really good bargain or am I lookin at something else?

 

[SirGrotius]

I have a Dimension 4550, too.

My processor is a bit slower than yours (2 Ghz to 2.53), but I have some more RAM (1 GB to 768).

I have a GeForce 6800 GT, which is damn awesome, the game looks fantastic. I would recommend splurging for it, if you cannot, the 6600 will play the game as well.

On a related note, I'd check your power supply. I had to upgrade mine from the laughable 180 WATT or whatever the stock is. You can get power supplies cheap from ANTEC, and I've never had a problem. We're talking $50 bucks or so for 400 Ws, I wouldn't go lower than that.

Remember to upgrade your drivers, even for your soundblaster, and also set the virtual memory after upgrading your RAM, my computer didn't do it automatically.

SG-

 

[Beerdude26]

Well, it'd be best to go for the 6600/6800 GT if SirGrotius here says he doesn't have any problems with them.

 

[xombine]

I'd really suggest going with the 6800. It's worth the money and in the long run you'll get better performance from games to come.