Find me a decent video card that isn't stupidly expensive

[Fifty]

...I want to be able to play some newish games. I don't need to play top of the line stuff like super fancy shooter games.

My computer:

3GB ram
Q6600 Processor
Vista 64
This monitor
500gb or so HD

The video card I have now is the crappy integrated intel thingy that came with the computer, so I don't think keeping it is an option.


Also: Are video cards easy to install?

Also: Should I get RAM?

Also: If I should get RAM, is RAM easy to install?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

9800GT, HD 4770, HD 4850, HD 5750, GTS 250. Pretty much your top choices. And yes, RAM is easy to install.

 

[Fifty]

I have no idea what those letters and numbers mean. Links????????

And how does I decide what RAM to buy?

 

[GVBN]

Newegg has a 512mb HD4870 for $125

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I have no idea what those letters and numbers mean. Links????????

And how does I decide what RAM to buy?

You can search on newegg for that and it will tell you. Read some of the reviews, decide if the price is right, and buy.

As for RAM, You most likely have DDR2 800.

 

[Zelig]

Best card for $57: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102854
Best card for $72: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500104
Best card for $85: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102824
Best card for $127: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131140

Not worth going any more expensive with the resolution on your monitor, I'd guess the $85 one is probably the best deal for your usage.

 

[Atticus]

Others here know more than me about this thing, but since I just bought one for the exact same reason, and I know next nothing about these things, I can probably relate more to the problem you're facing.

I wanted to play newish games (post 2003), but didn't need to be prepared for the future ones, so I went through wikipedia pages for games that interest me, and got the picture that 512 mb would be enough. The idea was that if I want to give up some quality for cheap price, I wouldn't give it up too much. The RAM of card isn't the only measure for it's goodness, but I omitted the others presuming that a) they correlate with the amount of RAM, and b) If I buy substandard card, I'll at least learn something from it.

I bought used ATI Radeon 3650 for 30 euros, people who know more about these things will probably find lots of bad things to say about it, but at least civ 4 looks better, and I can perhaps finally install Medieval II Total War.

Installing was quite easy: just put it in the pci-e slot and the CD in after starting the computer. (I've understood that some cards require additional power supply, but this won't). I've understood that all modern PCs have pci-e slot, but at least I took a look inside first.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Im not gonna comment on your choice of GPU.
I will say this though. Amount of VRAM stopped being a good measure 5 years ago. I can show you crappy video cards with more RAM than the ones I have.
I have a GTX 260+ with 896MB of VRAM. I have seen 9400GT's with 1GB of VRAM. Difference is that the GTX 260+ is about 10x as fast as the 9400GT. Yet, it has less VRAM.

Nowadays you gotta look at things like reviews and model numbers. Even core and shader speed are fairly irrelevant. They're all fairly close to each other, yet, the cards are still extremely different in performance.

 

[Atticus]

Ok, then I guess I'm about to learn a lesson

I don't actually mind paying small amounts for learning something trough errors. I hope my post at least helped Fifty to notice how to not think when you're bouing a graphics card.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Dont worry, your card is fine if you dont do much gaming (civ 4 is not 'gaming' in the sense that im talking about.) Its a bit pricey for that class of a GPU, but nonetheless, still capable.

And hey, now you learned something.

My suggestion if you wanna check out reviews of GPU's, read HardOCP, Toms Hardware, and bit-tech ( there may be more out there, but these are the sites I regularly visit and they do pretty will with reviews.) They are a bit more gaming oriented, but even then, you can often find the info you need.