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Baalzebub
2007-03-12, 11:40 AM
Can you please recommend me a good video card to play Warhammer 40k: the Dark Crusade?? I want to update my computer and I'll like a few ideas about what video card should I buy for it.

The Evil Thing
2007-03-12, 01:38 PM
What's your spending limit?

If you desperately need a new card then perhaps get one on budget - ATI X800 series, for instance, otherwise I suggest waiting until the Dx10 cards drop in price.

Baalzebub
2007-03-13, 07:56 AM
Around $300 and $500. $700 at most. :smalleek:

The Evil Thing
2007-03-13, 12:29 PM
Well, in that case, may I suggest a GeForce 8800GTX :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:. I think they're about 500 dólares. Could be wrong though, I'm not familiar with prices across the pond.

Though for the love of God, make sure your PSU has a PCI-Express output.

It's a six-pin arrangement as so...
o|o|o
o|o|o

It'll work with a 4-pin adaptor though it won't be happy. (Also get a 600W to be on the safe side)

Baalzebub
2007-03-13, 12:54 PM
all right!! I think my computer has the PCI-express output. I'll check that in a moment. Thanks evil thing!!

Mebrade
2007-03-13, 06:38 PM
Are you using Windows Vista, though? Though PCI-E cards are the wave of the future, unless you're using DX10 with a game that makes unified shader API calls it's not going to do much.

Granted, of course, your games will run fast. But the extra you pay for won't come into play yet.

Baalzebub
2007-03-14, 08:28 AM
Are you using Windows Vista, though? Though PCI-E cards are the wave of the future, unless you're using DX10 with a game that makes unified shader API calls it's not going to do much.

Granted, of course, your games will run fast. But the extra you pay for won't come into play yet.

Yeah, that's why i'm updating all of my computer. I'm just thinking on how much will I spend in the hardware update. Windows Vista is my next choice, but I prefer to wait a bit before purchasing it. Maybe three months or so.

The Evil Thing
2007-03-14, 12:55 PM
What hardware do you plan on buying at the moment?

InaVegt
2007-03-14, 01:13 PM
Don't get the one I have, 16 MB is not an acceptable amount of graphic memory for a computer you want to game on.

Samiam303
2007-03-14, 01:15 PM
Don't get the one I have, 16 MB is not an acceptable amount of graphic memory for a computer made more recently then the 1980s.
Fixed. :wink:

InaVegt
2007-03-14, 01:33 PM
Fixed. :wink:

What if it's only 2 years old? (It is in fact that old)

Baalzebub
2007-03-14, 01:53 PM
What hardware do you plan on buying at the moment?

Ram, I currently got 512 mb, I'll update to 2 gb... A 19" monitor, maybe, and a HDD of 400 gb (i've got 200). And the video card too...

Samiam303
2007-03-14, 02:02 PM
That's quite a budget you've got there! What do you really need 400 GB of HD space for? o.O

The Evil Thing
2007-03-14, 02:17 PM
Yeah, 200GB is more than enough I would think. :smalltongue:

Perhaps splash on a new CPU as well. Quad-Core if you can afford it but the E6600 Dual-Core is a very nice chip. Stay well away from AMD for now.

InaVegt
2007-03-14, 02:20 PM
Maybe get one of those brand new PPUs?

Baalzebub
2007-03-14, 11:46 PM
Yeah, 200GB is more than enough I would think. :smalltongue:

Perhaps splash on a new CPU as well. Quad-Core if you can afford it but the E6600 Dual-Core is a very nice chip. Stay well away from AMD for now.

Believe me, 200 gb is not enough if you share your computer with your other three sisters... :smallsigh:

Mebrade
2007-03-15, 01:44 PM
Ram, I currently got 512 mb, I'll update to 2 gb... A 19" monitor, maybe, and a HDD of 400 gb (i've got 200). And the video card too...

What speed of RAM are you getting, and what's your motherboard and processor? These will be fairly important as well.

Baalzebub
2007-03-15, 08:18 PM
This are the specifications:

Intel® Pentium® 4 540 HT Tech
1MB L2 Cache, 3.20GHz, 800MHz FSB
Windows XP Home Edition Original
17" Flat LCD
Intel® 915G
512 MB DDR RAM
200 GB Serial ATA 2 HDD
3.5" 1.44MB
DL 16x DVD±RW
8-in-1 (USB 2.0, Secure Digital (SD), Smart Media, Compact Flash, Micro Drive, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Multimedia Card)
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 until 128MB shared memory DDR
Intel® High Definition Audio
Intel® PRO 10/100 Mbps
56K PCI fax/modem
1 PCI-E x16, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI
7.25w" x 14.125"h x 16"d

Samiam303
2007-03-15, 09:11 PM
Honestly, looking at that, I'm saying upgrade Video Card and Ram, and you're good. Forget the HD, unless you REALLY need it... But 200 GB filled seems crazy. o.O

Mebrade
2007-03-15, 09:48 PM
If you're really in the mood upgrading, you might want to consider a new motherboard and chip combo. It seems that your setup is based off of a few years old design, which may not have a PCI-E slot (what you'd need for a new DX10-able graphics card). This is pretty expensive, and even though you'd be set up for a while, this plus a new graphics card is easily over 300.

Dark Crusade shouldn't be too intensive though - if you want to buy a fairly priced graphics card with a good processor (remember: processor speed is better than lots of RAM), you'll want to remember that it'll be obselete in the long run.

Erloas
2007-03-15, 10:33 PM
If you're really in the mood upgrading, you might want to consider a new motherboard and chip combo. It seems that your setup is based off of a few years old design, which may not have a PCI-E slot (what you'd need for a new DX10-able graphics card). This is pretty expensive, and even though you'd be set up for a while, this plus a new graphics card is easily over 300.

Dark Crusade shouldn't be too intensive though - if you want to buy a fairly priced graphics card with a good processor (remember: processor speed is better than lots of RAM), you'll want to remember that it'll be obselete in the long run.



1 PCI-E x16, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI


So as long as he got his specs right he has the PCI-E slot needed for any of the new video cards.

Looking at the specs for the original and Winter Assault I wouldn't expect Dark Crusades to increase it very much. While your processor isn't the greatest, it is more then up to the task at hand and I imagine will still be useful for some time to come. What is really holding you back is the integrated video card and the limited RAM. Your system RAM is low to start with and you have to share a fair amount of it with the video card just making it that much worse. On top of that, pretty much without exception onboard video cards just suck, no way around it, if you want to play games you need a stand alone video card. Even a low end video card would help out a lot.

Upgrade your RAM to at least 1GB. I would get a single 1GB RAM and use what you can of your original 512 in the remaining slots (maybe the full 512 if you have open slots or if it is a single chip already since I haven't seen any MBs with only 1 slot).

As for the video card, even a mid range card will do wonders for your current setup. I wouldn't recommend a DX10 card at this point unless you plan on upgrading pretty much everything, since you get little use out of the DX10 stuff until more games are released for it (very few are, and only a few in production now use it that I'm aware of) and you have to upgrade to Vista as well. For the video card memory I would get at least 256mb. There isn't much saved in going less and its more then enough for most games.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/06/the_best_gaming_video_cards_for_the_money/index.html
I would check there for their recomendations, they have a very good handle on the hardware situation and thats about as current of an articale as you will find. Just pick your price range and see what they say. They do a good job of identifing the differences between the suffix designations on the cards that are otherwise named exactly the same.

The harddrive is entirely up to what you think you need. How much you need is entirely dependant on what sort of things you are doing and you have a better guage on that then anyone else can. 200GB for me is huge, I would never use it all, but my brother does a lot of video stuff and is always worried about HD space even though he has a lot more then I do. Depending on how many SATA slots you have, just get what you can afford now and you can upgrade later without loosing anything. If you have 2 or more open SATA slots then you can add one now and upgrade again later if you need to without loosing anything. I know my MB has, for who knows what reason, 6 SATA slots (though 4 are part of the onboard RAID controller) so most have plenty of room for expansion. The price for a 400gb is just about 2x that of a 200gb so you aren't loosing much in the cost per GB area by going with a smaller drive first if the cost is a problem.

http://www.pricewatch.com/ Is a site I check a lot to get prices, though like any bulk pricing site you have to basically avoid the first couple listings and don't get the generic/house brand items.

http://www.newegg.com/ I find is a great site for product reviews. They have pretty good prices for some items but others are a little higher.

Samiam303
2007-03-16, 10:13 AM
I don't know why everyone's not to get a DX10 card... What's the point in getting a new card that you KNOW is gonna be COMPLETELY obsolete within a year or two?

Erloas
2007-03-16, 10:41 AM
I don't know why everyone's not to get a DX10 card... What's the point in getting a new card that you KNOW is gonna be COMPLETELY obsolete within a year or two?

Well probably because a DX10 card now is like $300, you need a new OS and about 1-2 full years before you see more then a small handful of games that require DX10. Most likely by the time you have Vista and games that require DX10 you can get a DX10 card for 100-150, possibly even better then what we see right now. I also expect most people to not upgrade to Vista until they upgrade their whole PC anyway, so chances are any video card purchased now will be replaced by the time someone switchs to Vista anyway. That is at least for casual and mid range gamers and not for the hardcore gamers that are willing to spend thousands every year upgrading.

The Evil Thing
2007-03-16, 01:45 PM
So your logic is spend 300 every year or two rather than 600 every three or four?

Samiam303
2007-03-16, 04:53 PM
Well probably because a DX10 card now is like $300, you need a new OS and about 1-2 full years before you see more then a small handful of games that require DX10. Most likely by the time you have Vista and games that require DX10 you can get a DX10 card for 100-150, possibly even better then what we see right now. I also expect most people to not upgrade to Vista until they upgrade their whole PC anyway, so chances are any video card purchased now will be replaced by the time someone switchs to Vista anyway. That is at least for casual and mid range gamers and not for the hardcore gamers that are willing to spend thousands every year upgrading.
Well, looking at the budget he's throwing around, he's gonna be getting an expensive card either way. Why get an expensive card that you'll HAVE TO replace instead of just going with the expensive DX10 card now?

Erloas
2007-03-16, 05:22 PM
Well, looking at the budget he's throwing around, he's gonna be getting an expensive card either way. Why get an expensive card that you'll HAVE TO replace instead of just going with the expensive DX10 card now?

Well I forgot about the spending limit on the second post. If you are already planning on spending $300 for a video card then by all means get the DX10 one. But if he wants something to last a while until he gets ready for a full system then a mid range card will fill his needs for a while to come. Considering that the HD he wants is about $100, the RAM upgrade which he also needs is about $75 then hes only got about $125 left for a video card for $300.

If we assume its going to be another year or so before Vista is really needed and before DX10 games come out in any number then it is very likely that the DX10 $300 card right now will be $150 by then. So if spends $150 now and $150 a year from now hes still at the same point as if he spent the $300 right now. Of course we don't know what will change between now and then, it might be 2 years before we need Vista and the same $150 will get him a much better card. It might be that you can handle $150 now and $150 again later then you would be able to afford $300 all at once. There really are a lot of variables.




One thing that I didn't notice right away is that you might also want to pick up a cheap expansion sound card. I've seen it make fairly significant increases in system preformance by disabling onboard sound and adding a sound card. A sound card to fullfill this purpose is probably only like $30. On my brothers PC that I built for him I saw a significant increase in speed (forget how much exactly but it was enough to suprise me) in some gaming benchmarks by disabling his onboard sound and installing an old SB Live! card I had sitting around.
This might not be as effective on all MBs though, I haven't had the opportunity to do a lot of testing. Get some game that gives you a demo you can benchmark and run it, then disable your onboard sound in the BIOS and run it again and see how much of a difference it makes.

Baalzebub
2007-03-17, 03:14 PM
wow... thank you all guys! Now I have a general idea of what I need to update and around how much I will spend.

And yeah, I'll upgrade to 400 gb for the HD. My three sisters use this computer too and they download a huge amount of videos and music everyday. Suffice to say that right now there's only 80 gb free space.

Samiam303
2007-03-17, 03:38 PM
Couldn't you just make them delete the videos and music after they're done with it? There's no reason that ANYONE should have 120 GB of downloaded stuff.. o.O

Mebrade
2007-03-20, 03:52 AM
Geez, 400GB.

In short, I'm still a fan of waiting. You'll be upgrading your computer in the next three years to play Dawn of War 2, no doubt. If you buy new RAM, it might not be the right DIMMs / speed for your new computer. If you buy a new non-DX10 graphics card, you'll soon kick yourself as you shell out the change for a then-budget 7000GT. I seriously recommend holding off until you lay down the cash for a new machine.

Which, to be frank, won't be long now.

Baalzebub
2007-03-20, 07:26 AM
Geez, 400GB.

In short, I'm still a fan of waiting. You'll be upgrading your computer in the next three years to play Dawn of War 2, no doubt. If you buy new RAM, it might not be the right DIMMs / speed for your new computer. If you buy a new non-DX10 graphics card, you'll soon kick yourself as you shell out the change for a then-budget 7000GT. I seriously recommend holding off until you lay down the cash for a new machine.

Which, to be frank, won't be long now.

I guess I can do that and leave my old PC to my three sisters. But I'm not quite sure because of the budget. I'm not very good at savings :smallbiggrin:

I'd need to check the prices on the new computers and all that. The way I see it, my first option is the upgrade, though.

Erloas
2007-03-20, 12:05 PM
Geez, 400GB.

In short, I'm still a fan of waiting. You'll be upgrading your computer in the next three years to play Dawn of War 2, no doubt. If you buy new RAM, it might not be the right DIMMs / speed for your new computer. If you buy a new non-DX10 graphics card, you'll soon kick yourself as you shell out the change for a then-budget 7000GT. I seriously recommend holding off until you lay down the cash for a new machine.

Which, to be frank, won't be long now.

The question comes in what is going to happen in the next three years. Three years is actually a fair amount of time, a lot of time for someone that is still living with their sisters.
$300 now shouldn't be too hard to get and that gives a mid range card, a reasonable amount of RAM and a bit more HD space (even a 200GB upgrade wouldn't be bad because its in addition to what you already have instead of replacing it). Considering that a full upgrade would be considerable more then that, and that even upgrading to a new DX10 card now it will be low end and would probably be upgraded with a new system in 3 years anyway.

Also if its hard to save, then those parts can be upgraded at different times. Start with 75-100 for some more RAM now, get $125ish for a video card and upgrade that later. Start threatening your sisters that you will delete their stuff if they don't donate money to upgrade the HD, tell them its twice as expensive as it actually is and get them to put in half (or 75% since its 3 to 1) and upgrade that when you can.

Where as if you want a full new system that is going to be a significant increase over what you already have you are probably looking at $1200 or more, you also need to replace things like monitors (couple hundred at least) and keyboard/mice (can range from $10 to $150) since you can't steal them from the old, but still working PC.

Midnight Son
2007-03-20, 12:43 PM
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200612.ars/3
There's a guide for building a new computer for ya! It generally runs in the $2K range. You may consider upgrading the video card and downgrading a few other things, but it's a pretty decent guide anyway.