Graphics cards !!! Need a cheap upgrade from 128mb Gforce 8300 gs

[Colinevan]

Id thought id ask on here as some peeps are very clued up on there pc's.

My current setup is an advent core 2 quad 2.4 ghz
4 gb ram
Nvdia gforce 8300 gs 128 mb card. its still available on ebay and seems to be popular from some reason. Some sellers want £40 for it.

Now i mainly use this pc for looking at pics from my dslr, music itunes and a few games , but i have now started to watch dvd's or downloaded films on a large hd tv in the bedroom. So far it plays ok, however windows base scores are low (3.4 as opposed to 5.9's for most other performances )for graphics department so i guess its either upgrade or even replace machine as it runs vista 32 so doesn't maximize all the ram available.

Now i see graphics cards of around 1gb for a rather lowish £40. Im open to recommendations or even second hand bargains if anyone can advise of a prticular card or indeed ones to avoid ( maybe high gb speed but crap in other areas).

Any advice is greatly appreaciated.

Col.

[Dombrasky]

Hi
IMO stick with nvidia something like this maybe
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...430oc-1gl.html

[almunro]

Do yourself a favour and upgrade to win 7, vista is a pig and terribly slow. Go to Win7 and you will find your computer is faster without changing anything else.

[Colinevan]

Originally Posted by almunro

Do yourself a favour and upgrade to win 7, vista is a pig and terribly slow. Go to Win7 and you will find your computer is faster without changing anything else.

To be honest I was looking at having a dabble with windows 8 beta as I'm under the impression that if younusebthe beta version, when it's commercially available you can purchase it for a reasonable price . Something like £30

However with the sensible side, I decided to leave things ha ha.

In all honesty a new operating system and graphics card , your probably talking £150 . I bet the pc is probably worth £180 second hand value and it's more cost effective to buy a new machine. From memory my hd is only 380gb.

Or can I ask what would ou guys do.

[Colinevan]

Originally Posted by Dombrasky

Hi
IMO stick with nvidia something like this maybe
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...430oc-1gl.html

Thanks. If people think its worth spending, I'll prob go for that or a second hand card equivalent .

[Cardnim]

Hi Colin,

Good question about the upgrade mate, and I would very much add my recommendation to go ahead and do it.
Your computer spec seems average, with a decent enough processor and a nice chunk of RAM. That 128Mb video card certainly isnt up to the rest of the spec you mention.

I would also recommend something like that Gigbyte nVidia video card which Dombrasky linked to in his post.
I run a similar machine to you; and I run it as a Media Server and currently have an nVidia 9800 GT (1Gb) in it. An older card by todays standards, but cheap to pick up and really great performance AND reliability (a key point worth considering for any video card)

The Windows Vista issue I would only worry about if you feel that the Operating System is unreliable, crashing often or you need software which only works on WIndows 7.
Dont go Windows 8 chum - or any BETA route for that matter - can be a nightmare if you dont know what you are doing, and / or you dont like spending hours tweaking and rolling back driver installs and setup features. yuk.

Hope it helps mate.

[Colinevan]

Originally Posted by Cardnim

Hi Colin,

Good question about the upgrade mate, and I would very much add my recommendation to go ahead and do it.
Your computer spec seems average, with a decent enough processor and a nice chunk of RAM. That 128Mb video card certainly isnt up to the rest of the spec you mention.

I would also recommend something like that Gigbyte nVidia video card which Dombrasky linked to in his post.
I run a similar machine to you; and I run it as a Media Server and currently have an nVidia 9800 GT (1Gb) in it. An older card by todays standards, but cheap to pick up and really great performance AND reliability (a key point worth considering for any video card)

The Windows Vista issue I would only worry about if you feel that the Operating System is unreliable, crashing often or you need software which only works on WIndows 7.
Dont go Windows 8 chum - or any BETA route for that matter - can be a nightmare if you dont know what you are doing, and / or you dont like spending hours tweaking and rolling back driver installs and setup features. yuk.

Hope it helps mate.

Wow thanks for some good advice so far guys.

Im amazed you can understand my typing as well, as on the ipad oople is extremely laggy and auto corrects and errr anyways ill get my coat ha ha.

Right , hmm seems a card is the way forward, and then possibly for the future an additional hard drive.

[/tobys]

Win7 is faster than Vista and I would strongly recommend upgrading. You will need to perform a fresh install to feel the full benefit, which you may think is too much hassle but it would be worth it