Which is better??

[Warped]

My friend wants to buy Bioshock for $5 (http://www.direct2drive.com/2/4645/product/Buy-BioShock-Download) but I told him he has to have a decent video card first. He tried the demo with his ATI Radeon X1050 and said it was choppy of course. Besides me suggesting he get a new one from Newegg, would my old NVidia 7300LE be any better?? or are they about the same in terms of performance??

 

[Escaep]

I'll take a gander and say they are both relatively the same in performance, with the 7300 having maybe just a hair bit better. If the rest of his system is decent, he can pick up an 8600GT for less than $50. Which is adequate to run Bioshock.

 

[Laivasse]

Yeah, the 8600GT seems a good bet. There was a similar thread on here a while back (mid-range gaming card for an aging rig) - I suggested the 8600GT and lots of people sang its praises. It will be an immeasurable improvement on his Radeon X1050, at least.

 

[AtomicSpark]

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/

 

[Warped]

thanks guys, I'll have to make him an account, but the game and then even if he backs out $5 is nothing

 

[Asus]

They are both about the same and that's if you benchmarked them on games from 2005.
Fast forward and try to run today's games...slideshow on both.

Check out the link AtomicSpark gave and go to the 2006 GPU chart. Shows the 7300 GS and X600 Pro both about 25-30 FPS in HL2EP1 @ 1024x768. This is a game that is not as intense on the video card as bioshock.
The 7300 GS is better than the LE version. The X600 pro is faster than the x550 which is what the x1050 was renamed from the previous year.
An X1050 and 7300 LE would do worse than those simlar cards that I pointed out.