Cheap graphics card

[Mise]

I just bought a second hand computer (Intel Core 2 Duo 6320, 1gb RAM), but the guy who sold it ninja'd the graphics card, so I'm stuck with crappy onboard Intel gfx. I saved a fair bit of money by buying it second hand, so still have a little over £50 ($100 or so, but things are more expensive in the UK) left over in my budget to blow on a graphics card.

Now, I know absolutely nothing about graphics cards these days. Tomshardware has become rather too confusing for me, especially since I'm after a cheapo card. I heard that DX10 is out, so I reckon I should get a DX10 gfx card. I also heard something about Vista "needing" it, or otherwise being more compatible with DX10 than XP, or something along those lines. If anyone can shed some light onto this DX10 stuff I'd be grateful.

Anyway, my main question is, what gfx card should I get, for around £50? I'd be willing to pay a bit more if it offered significant improvements though.

 

[Zelig]

You don't need DX10, and shouldn't expect it at that price, even if you get a compatible card, it will be too slow to actually play anything in DX10 mode.

For £50, your best bet is a 2600 XT I believe. The x1950 pro is faster, and a bit more money. Not really much after that until you get to the x2900 pro, which is significantly more expensive.

Comparable nvidia cards tend to be more expensive at that price point, but if you're interested, a 2600 XT is more or less equivalent to an 8600 GT.

 

[Mise]

Cheers for the recommendation Zelig. I read this article on Tomshardware -- I'm not sure what to make of it now that you've said that a cheap dx10 card would run games too slow? DX10 cards on a budget. It also recommends the 2600 Pro/XT cards.

I typically don't trust review sites, and prefer people recommending stuff, since timedemos and synthetic benchmarks don't give the same feel as when you're actually using them.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

What he means I think is that they will be too slow to run any DX10 games effectively, but for DX9 you should be good with either a 2600XT as Zelig said, or once again, as Zelig said, a 8600 GT from nVidia ( though the GT is a bit more expensive). Make sure to check out the comparison charts on TH, since that can give a good estimate for the kind of cards you can get in your price range:
Linky

 

[Mise]

Hmm, I'm a bit confused. If I want to be able to play the newest DX10 games in 1024x768, what would I need to buy? Would a decent DX9 card (e.g. X1950 Pro) play DX10 games better than a similarly priced DX10 card (e.g. 2600XT)?

TBH I don't plan on playing any DX10 games for a long time. I'd be perfectly happy with something comparable to my old Radeon 9800 Pro, for the time being. Would it therefore be better to buy a slightly cheaper DX9 card now, and then in 15-18 months time buy a DX10 card when (a) I need it and (b) they're cheaper?

 

[PureEvil]

I have a 2600 XT, its made by HIS and its 512Mb, i am yet to try out a Dx10 game on it, but its very good, mine cost me 90 quid, is factory overclocked, not my much though. It runs Half Life 2 at 1650*1080 with maximum qualitys and all at a steady 35 FPS, more than playable for that game.
My system is significantly less powerful than your second hand one on its own ive only got a 2Ghz AMD sempron, and 1.5 gigs of RAM.
wether the cheaper 2600Xt's would yeild the same in performance i am unsure, but its similar in performance to an 8600 GT (i think its GT) so there good cards.

 

[Mise]

Well I went for the 2600XT Zelig recommended (256Mb). It cost me £58 inc vat/del, which is much cheaper than the X1950. Can't wait for it to arrive

Cheers guys

 

[kingworldss]

the one you mentioned seems good, cheap enough

 

[Mise]

Okay, problem... I installed the gfx card above, but when I boot it up it says that this motherboard will only support "ADD2 or SDVO" cards in the x16 slot only?! What the hell does that mean?

 

[GVBN]

Check your BIOS settings, there may be an option to switch from ADD2/SDVO mode to PCI-E mode

 

[Mise]

Check your BIOS settings, there may be an option to switch from ADD2/SDVO mode to PCI-E mode

Apparently, the computer that I bought just two weeks ago simply won't support "normal" PCI-E cards, only these strange ADD2/SDVO cards that HP make. I'm going to have to get a new motherboard I'm very upset. Should only be about £30 though.

 

[mdwh]

I'm currently looking into gfx cards around that price too.

Re: DirectX 9 vx DirectX 10 cards, it's a bit of a decision to make. High end DirectX 9 cards such as the X1950 Pro and GeForce 7900GS seem to be significantly faster than similarly priced mid-range DirectX 10 cards such as the HD 2600 XT and GeForce 8600GT. But they don't support the latest features. In practice, AFAIK this means that DirectX 10 games may not look as good on the DirectX 9 cards.

I'm probably going for the GeForce 8600GT. Anyone know if these cards still have drivers for Windows 2000? (The websites for ATI and NVIDIA are rather unclear on the matter.) (I realise I can only use DirectX 10 with Vista btw, but I'm more interesting from a programming point of view, and I use OpenGL.)

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Unfortunately, nVidia's website does not seem to have the drivers. Basically, I doubt any of the new generation cards support windows 2000. The market for gaming on W2K is just not there.

 

[Zelig]

The 94.24 drivers for the Geforce 7 and below cards are the last set for Windows 2000.

 

[mdwh]

Well, it turns out the 8600GT works fine on Windows 2000 AFAICT - although the setup program on the CD crashed(!), the drivers themselves installed okay. I've just installed the latest drivers (Forceware 163.75) and they also support Windows 2000

A shame they don't admit to this on the website.