Graphics Card circa £40 and RAM?

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:18 pm

My lad's video card (7950 GT) has packed up on his pc.

I've looked for a replacement and am at a bit of a loss due to the choice and the fact that bigger model numbers dont always mean better cards.

Can anyone suggest a reasonable card, perhaps improving on the 7950 GT? There seems to be a lot of choice around the £30 to £40 mark. any recommendations on where to buy from to?

Needs to be PCI-E and not fussed if Radeon or Nvidia. He uses his Xbox mainly for gaming, it's and old pc so there is no point spending much more.

He also only 1gb of Ram (2 x 512mb) so that could probably do with a boost, where's the best (ie cheapest) place to buy Ram these days? Need ddr2 240 pin.

Cheers all

Post by **indigolemon** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:36 pm

For ram I tend to buy direct from Crucial: http://www.crucial.com/uk/ Prices are usually much of a muchness.

Graphics card wise, if he's not a serious PC gamer, I'd look at an AMD with passive colling in his price range. Runs quieter and perfect for the odd gaming blip. Something like: http://www.ebuyer.com/265347-sapphire-h ... 190-02-20g

Not going to set the world on fire, but a really nice card for the money. Here is is versus the Nvidia 8500GT: http://www.hwcompare.com/10228/geforce- ... -6450-oem/

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:51 pm

So the 6450 is still going to see a great improvement on the current card?

Funny how times move on so quick and the prices crash down. I remember spending £120 on a Voodoo 3 which was the dong at the time. Then seeing them sold for a fiver a few year later. Lol

Post by **indigolemon** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:52 pm

Totally! I still have my voodoo 3 somewhere. Useful backup as it's PCI

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 5:08 pm

Yeah, but the next MB I bought was AGP! In fact im still using my pc, most of the bit are well over 10 years old now, if not more.

Cheers for the links.

For the ram, he has 2 x 512 at the mo taking two of the 4 slots. Should I buy two more 512 giving him 2gb,or will two lots of 1gb work ok so he has 3gb in total?

Post by **indigolemon** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 5:58 pm

Shiny wrote:Yeah, but the next MB I bought was AGP! In fact im still using my pc, most of the bit are well over 10 years old now, if not more.

Cheers for the links.

For the ram, he has 2 x 512 at the mo taking two of the 4 slots. Should I buy two more 512 giving him 2gb,or will two lots of 1gb work ok so he has 3gb in total?

You'd need to check this as it can vary motherboard to motherboard. 3gb is as much as XP can address though, a limitation of it being 32bit. Either will show an improvement over 1gb though!

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:11 pm

His is Vista and I read somewhere that Compaq recommended max ram was 4gb.

I take It I'm ok to mix 512 and 1gb ram?

Shiny · Post by **Shiny** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:44 pm

Just read I can as long as slots 1&3 and 2&4 match.

Ordered the Radeon and two lots of 1gb ram

Cheers Mr Lemon

Post by **indigolemon** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:52 pm

Sorry man. Been watching the olympics

Sounds like you're sorted!

JayJay · Post by **JayJay** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 7:06 pm

indigolemon wrote:Totally! I still have my voodoo 3 somewhere. Useful backup as it's PCI

I've still got mine as well, it's in my parent's old PC tower