Advice on Graphics Card?

Electronics & Photo Fan

Electronics & Photo Fan

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I've seen a PC in the shops;

Base Unit Only

Intel Pentium 4 650 (3.4GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache, HT Technology)
2GB RAM
160GB HDD
64MB ATI Radeon X550HM Graphics
XP Home Edition
DVD+-RW Drive (Multi-Format

£570.

Is the Graphics card obscure? I need the PC to be able to play SimCity 4, which requires specific chipsets. Are there different type of ATI Radeon, or will any ATI Radeon chipset work?

SimCity 4 works with these chipsets:

NVIDIA Geforce4, Geforce3, Geforce 2, Geforce 256
NVIDIA TNT2, TNT
ATI Radeon 9700, 9000, 8500, 7500, 7200, 7000
Matrox Parhelia
Matrox G550, G450, G400

I thought that the PC was quite cheap for the price, so replacing the graphics card at a later date may not be a problem.

Any advice?
 
Any advice?
Click to expand...
Yep, it is like painting your car windscreen black and going for a drive. The car is ok but you won't get very far.
laughingsmiley.gif



HM is a new 'buzz word' for 'fool the customer' ... go back and ask what crap motherboard are they using in that Fujitsu. :thumb:
 
Thanks for the advice Muckshifter.


Does the "HM" mean its as bad as having integrated graphics?

Is the reason the PC is so cheap, then, because they've used a poor motherboard?

I was looking at the fact it had a fast CPU and lots of RAM, I should have realised they'd compromised somewhere.
 
That graphics card would actually work, but compared to the rest of the system it really does lack - most graphics cards should have 256MB ram now (although that doesn't mean they are any good). :)
 
Electronics & Photo Fan said:
Thanks for the advice Muckshifter.


Does the "HM" mean its as bad as having integrated graphics?

Is the reason the PC is so cheap, then, because they've used a poor motherboard?

I was looking at the fact it had a fast CPU and lots of RAM, I should have realised they'd compromised somewhere.
Click to expand...
It is a good price seeing as most Dickson & PCWorld were wanting £700-£800 for it, but ... unless I know what MB they are using I'll stay clear.

If it is a 'proper' graphics card, it can be replaced, onboad cannot and usually means a cheap MB is also being used.

Good MBs are the heart & sole of a PC ... A 'gamers' graphic card can cost as much as the rest of the PC put together.

Ask them what MB is being used and come back and ask us what we think, if they do not know ... walk. ;)
 
The PC is in PC World, as a clearance offer, base unit only.


I'll go back and ask what Motherboard it has, but I did read that the graphics card uses the PCI-E slot.

But as it is PC World, I probably won't get a (truthful) answer as to what Motherboard it uses.

The other day one of the guys in there told me that some of the Sony PCs they were selling had Windows Vista OS on them, and when I asked to see they said, "Oh, we must have sold them." :D
 
Ok, I went back and asked PC World to look up the board for me, it is a:

Gigabyte GA-81945PE

I looked on Gigabyte's website, and they have listed a "GA-8I945P Pro". There is an I instead of a 1 and no E on the end. However, the chipset is "Intel 945P Express", I assume this refers to the PCI-Express on the board. Maybe Gigabyte have omitted the E, or PC World made a mistake?

Anyway, the specifications:

Intel 945P Express chipset
LGA775 CPU socket
PCI-E x16 slot
4 X DDR2 slots (supports up to 4GB total) (supports Dual Channel)
4 X SATA connections, 3Gb/s
Gigabit Ethernet
Firewire, USB 2.0
Sound onboard

Here: http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/M...oard&ProductID=1905&ProductName=GA-8I945P Pro

The specifications look almost exactly the same as a Gigabyte board a mate used in his new build, about this time last year, except that board had Dual Bios as well.

Any advice on the board, and is it a decent one for the price of the PC?

P.S. Second time of writing this, the forum told me I was logged out when I clicked "Submit Reply", very strange
 
Hmmm, can't really fault that ... I'm trying to. ;)

Go for it, it is not my choice of MB but GB ain't that bad.

:thumb:
 
Just out of interest, why is it not your type of board?

I've been reading around, and I found that hypermemory (which I reckon is what the HM on the end of the graphics card stands for), means that the board uses the system RAM for its memory (which must make it slower!)

Anyway, I can replace the graphics card at a later date if I want to.

Thanks for all the advice!
 
Electronics & Photo Fan said:
Just out of interest, why is it not your type of board?

I've been reading around, and I found that hypermemory (which I reckon is what the HM on the end of the graphics card stands for), means that the board uses the system RAM for its memory (which must make it slower!)

Anyway, I can replace the graphics card at a later date if I want to.

Thanks for all the advice!
Click to expand...
oh, I'm a funny Old Git when it comes to MBs ... I have had one or two BGs, and worked on a few more, never really took to them.

Yes you are correct about HM ... lovely word init, 'hypermemory' got that sort of ring to it ...
laughingsmiley.gif


Glad to see you doing you homework ... :thumb:
 
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