Video Card Recommendations?

[rocketguy2]

Want to upgrade to a faster video card from my current 256 mb ATI All-In- Wonder 9600. Am running XP on a Dell Dimension 8300 with dual 2.8 GB processors, 3 GB of RAM.

Any recommendations?

Thanks.

 

[Eximious]

Do you have a PCI-E slot? That 9600 should be using an AGP slot, which won't support newer cards. If you have to stick with AGP, the best you can get is a Radeon 3850. Unfortunately, it's stupidly expensive for its performance compared with PCI-E cards.

If you do have a PCI-E slot, what you want depends on what applications you use. Consumer-oriented GPUs usually won't offer too much in the way of productivity enhancements. If you use Adobe CS4, Nvidia cards should allow for some smoother effects previews and 3D visualizations. Beyond that, if you simply want a card that can handle hi-def playback, a Radeon HD 4870 or Geforce GTX 260 would probably be the most you'd want to buy.

Check out this article for more help:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-gtx,2270.html

You'll also want to make sure you have proper overhead with your power supply before installing a new, more powerful card.