Best cheap graphics card?

Ian

Ian

Administrator
Joined
Feb 23, 2002
Messages
19,878
Reaction score
1,509
I'm looking for a very low budget graphics card that can handle games like the Sims 2 and other such games. Only something very cheap, less than £40ish. It doesn't need to be able to play half life or far cry, just the lower end 3D games.

The 9200SE looks like a good choice at the moment for £30. Does that seem reasonable?
 
Sims 2 is somwhat graphically tested. Some very high end CPU's and graphics card cant handle it on the highest setting, so they have too settle for medium.

But, i cant say which card i would choose, since i dont know much about ATI cards, only that there cheap-end cards are alot better then nvidias.

Kye
 
what about the PNY Verto 128Mb 5700LE? its probably gone down in price by now, we paid £50.88 inc VAT for it...
 
I am about to buy all the bits for my mates pc, getting him the asus board with the nvidia2 chipset. Was going to buy the asus nvidia 5200 128Mb card. Thats only about £30. Its the card ive got at home and he isn't interested in games. Anyone have any objections to that? Anything better for similar price?
 
The FX5200 is pretty useless to be honest, unless your a big Pong fan, becuase thats about all it can handle im afraid :(.

Save up some more, because you dont want to waste your money on something like that, try and aim for the card Chris was overclocking in the other thread, its only about 20 more but has about triple the performance under the belt.

If you wait till the January sales im sure you'd be able to pick up a nice 9700Pro or 9600XT for around the £60-£70 mark, and them 2 cards are much better than most of the FX 5 range.
 
Yeah, but as i have said, this machine isn't going to be used for gaming, and there is a pretty strict budget. I have the 5200 at home and to be honest, its an ok card. About 30-40 quid is the limit cause need to save cash for other parts which are more important, being that its not a gaming machine.
 
Hey there. I am 15 years old. I want to get a new graphics card, i think i have found a reasonable good priced one, i just want my games to run a bit more smoothly, for example Half life 2 takes a bit to load but when running ok i suppose, counterstrike runs pretty nicely ( i play this game ALOT!) but i would like to run it at a higher resolution. Here is the graphics card i am thinkin about :
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200 SE 128MB AGP8X Graphic Card with TV-Out Lite Retail


I have only recently really purchased a new HP computer from Singapore, (Summer holidays) here are it's stats : 3.0Ghz Intel Pentium 4 processor with Hyper threading technology, 512MB DDR ram, nvidia Geforce FX5500 + 256 MB DDR video memory, 160 GB hard drive


That seems ok to me. I am keen on computers you could say :P lol Is that a bad thing to do run a lower memory graphics card on one that is 256MB ? That also concerns me ?

Please could you help me on the graphics card issue, on wether to buy it , or can i get a better one for the same price ? ( I have quite a bit of money btw) lol

Thanx if you can help. I really appreciate it :) (I am new to the forum btw)
 
Belloni said:
Here is the graphics card i am thinkin about :
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200 SE 128MB AGP8X Graphic Card with TV-Out Lite Retail


I have only recently really purchased a new HP computer from Singapore, (Summer holidays) here are it's stats : 3.0Ghz Intel Pentium 4 processor with Hyper threading technology, 512MB DDR ram, nvidia Geforce FX5500 + 256 MB DDR video memory, 160 GB hard drive
Click to expand...
The FX5500 should be better than the Ati 9200SE, so dont bother with getting it! With that spec you should be able to play Half Life 2 with details at medium and a resolution of 800x600 with no trouble. If you want to get better performance you should be looking at another stick of 512 DDR and an Ati 9800Pro.

Have you tried updating your graphics card drivers? Here the latest ones: Forceware 66.93
 
bodhi said:
Yeah, but as i have said, this machine isn't going to be used for gaming, and there is a pretty strict budget. I have the 5200 at home and to be honest, its an ok card. About 30-40 quid is the limit cause need to save cash for other parts which are more important, being that its not a gaming machine.
Click to expand...
Well if its not being used for games then you should have no problem ;).
 
Oh right ok, i am downloading the driver update now.

Can you look at the topic : 3D mark crashing. I have posted a reply about my CRAPPY 3D mark 05 score thanx if you can and tell me how crap it is, lol if you can't find it just say and i will copy it for ya again.

Do you mean buy another 512MB ram so that i have 1024MB instead with new graphics card ? And i take it the memory has to be the same stick as the one i have at the moment ? Or shall i buy 2 new ones altogether ?!

What do i do when downloaded though that's what i don't understand about the drivers lol And i will look at buying the one you recommended :) Thanx

Oh yeah, and btw i play Counterstrike Source at the resolution 1240 x something or rather lol and its running fine i sposs but i would like it to be more detailed if you know what i mean lol, i run the settings at what it recommends :)
 
Last edited:
Ian Cunningham said:
I'm looking for a very low budget graphics card that can handle games like the Sims 2 and other such games. Only something very cheap, less than £40ish. It doesn't need to be able to play half life or far cry, just the lower end 3D games.

The 9200SE looks like a good choice at the moment for £30. Does that seem reasonable?
Click to expand...
I don't know if the Sims 2 would run on a 9200SE, I've a feeling it will.

I've run the game fine on an FX5600 256MB and it also runs fine on a 128MB Radeon 8500.

The 8500 is actually a faster card than a stock 9200. You may consider looking for a used 8500, I just had a look on E-Bay though and there's only two 64MB versions up for sale atm.

If you buy new, try and stretch to a stock 9200, not the SE version.
 
Belloni said:
Oh right ok, i am downloading the driver update now.

Can you look at the topic : 3D mark crashing. I have posted a reply about my CRAPPY 3D mark 05 score thanx if you can and tell me how crap it is, lol if you can't find it just say and i will copy it for ya again.

Do you mean buy another 512MB ram so that i have 1024MB instead with new graphics card ? And i take it the memory has to be the same stick as the one i have at the moment ? Or shall i buy 2 new ones altogether ?!
Click to expand...
Add an extra 512 so you have 1 gig of ram i mean :). The extra memory REALLY helps when rendering textures and stuff, it takes so much pressure of the graphics card and processor. When i upgraded from 512 to 1024 i really couldnt beleive how much better games ran, i could increase resolutions and up all details by quite abit! And ya can pick up 512mb of memory for around £50 now, which in my books is a bargain.
 
Yeah ok i might ask for more RAM and that graphics card you showed me for my birthday which is on da 27th THIS MONTH ! lol

Does it have to be the same type of stick though ? Won't running 2 seperate sticks ruin it or something ?!

And i downloaded from that website you said for my graphics card... Now what do i do ?! lol Does it automatically update my driver or... !? lol

Thanx m8
 
Back
Top