Computer capable of playing Civ4?

[FireFly91]

Hiya, I'm looking for a computer that can play Civilizations 4. So I've been looking and no joy, kinda lost really. What better place to ask other than a forum deicated to Civ!

Basically I have €400ish to spend with a max of €500.
I've never had to buy my own computer, so I am completely lost. I'm looking for information on what graphics cards, ammount of RAM, etc is recommended by people to play Civ 4 at mid to high specs, that aren't going to cost an arm and a leg.

I was thinking of something like this
CPU Type
Intel® Pentium® processor E6300
RAM
3GB
Graphics
ATI Radeon® HD 4350

It has two free PCI-Express slots free so I can upgrade to a new graphics card if the HD 4350 isn't good enough for Civ

Any help would be really appriacated. I've been searching for two weeks now and anything I've found has either been too expensive or I haven't been sure if its really worth the price.

Thanks

 

[GVBN]

HD4350 is a 30€ card so don't expect too much performance. E6300 and 3gb RAM are fine

 

[FireFly91]

What about the Asus 9600GT MAGIC/DI/512MD2. This would be much better yes?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

4350 should be able to play civ, not at high settings, but it oughta run it. A 9600GT will most definitely run it.

 

[Fëanor]

Make sure you get the new E6300 (Wolfdale 2.8Ghz) and not an old one (Conroe 1.86Ghz).

As for 9600GT, make sure you dont pay more than 60-70 bucks for it.

Ati's HD5750 is a much better buy, 130 bucks now and will probably drop to around 100 after the holidays/nVidia launches its DX11 cards.

 

[GVBN]

It says Pentium E6300 so it's the new one

 

[bob bobato]

Civ 4 is 4 years old now (!). It's still possible it wouldn't work well on a new PC?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

If the pc has an older GPU, yeah its still possible. A low amount of RAM can make large games pretty slow as well. For the most part though, if you have a pc from the last 2 years with a discrete GPU, you'd be able to play it.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I remember it played fine on my crummy integrated video, but I had to lower the settings somewhat because it would lag.

 

[Dida]

Civ4 played just fine on the highest graphic setting on my old 7600GT card, HD4350 should handle it superbly.
Civ4 is not a graphic intensive game, its speed will probably depend more on RAM and CPU as there are lots of number crunching to be done. 3D rendering is minimal in Civ.