[mack]

I need a new graphics card cus i want to play some nice PC games. I have 512 mb of ram on my Dell tower, but aparently its not enough. Dont flame me i know nothing about computers. All i know is that i have a DELL dimensiom 4550. I know how to take it apart and such. I was told that new graphic cards come in different sizes, or somthing. SO what size card do i need, and how much do they cost. What about used cards? thanks. I plan on playing HALO II and San Andreas when they come out...

-mack

 

[Kornphlake]

Actually the radeon 9550 isn't really a great video card, it might play new games but only at low resolutions and you'd notice slow frame rates from time to time. I'd reccomend something like a radeon 9600pro or a radeon 9700XT. Either of these will be better than the 9550 but not really stellar for games, for stellar performance you'd really need a new computer with 8X AGP or PCI-E and a $450 video card.

 

[mack]

slow down.


So i should get the one that H8R suggested? How do these things install, do i need to put in a new fan? Or maybe do you think i should just buy a friggen x box?

Ive been playing the game on my laptop, it has a raedon sumthing. The laptop is only 1 year old, but even still the graphics tear and sparkle allot. It sucks. Will this be the same kinda deal?

 

[Kornphlake]

The Radeon 9550 extreme i pointed him to is a hot-rodded version, it's basically a 9600 XT with slightly slower memory, same pipelines, etc.

A great card for that system. I'd think it'd be the fastest thing worth putting in there, or just start over.

Any other 9550 would be so so.

Review:
http://bit-tech.net/review/331/1

Ahh, I didn't recognize the number so I assumed that the convention of higher number=better performance. In this case the 9550 might be an acceptable purchase, still you might not get really great performance because you're going to be limited by the overall speed of your system and the 4X AGP capability really don't justify a more expensive video card like a 9800 XT which is what you'd really need to run the newest games without seeing fragmenting and stuttering unless you kept the video settings in the game turned down.

 

[mack]

Is there any way you can get a mouse for x box?

that would be choice. Do you think that the HALO 2 pc graphics will be better than x box graphics? are pc game graphics in general better than system graphics?

 

[Kornphlake]

slow down.


So i should get the one that H8R suggested? How do these things install, do i need to put in a new fan? Or maybe do you think i should just buy a friggen x box?

Ive been playing the game on my laptop, it has a raedon sumthing. The laptop is only 1 year old, but even still the graphics tear and sparkle allot. It sucks. Will this be the same kinda deal?

Installation is pretty simple, if you can install a chain on a bike you can install a video card, you may bang your head against a wall trying to get the drivers to work as ATI cards can be a little picky if you have had another video driver installed previously. If you're at all uncomfortable about the idea I'd say just get an xbox, the price right now is actually pretty good considering what you get and it will play Halo2 right now. I actually like the feel of the console controllers better than playing with the keyboard/mouse anyway.

 

[Kornphlake]

Is there any way you can get a mouse for x box?

that would be choice. Do you think that the HALO 2 pc graphics will be better than x box graphics? are pc game graphics in general better than system graphics?

I'm not a real Xbox Xpert so I can't say but it seems like you could get a keyboard and mouse for the Xbox used for surfing the internet and such, I'm not sure if it would work as a game controller though.

As far as graphics go, if you have the most current hardware in your computer the graphics on a PC can be better because the resolution of a computer monitor is superior to that of a TV. The down side is that if you have mediocre hardware you'll actually be worse off than if you just bought an Xbox. Games push computer hardware harder than any other consumer type software and they'll really show the limitations of your system. Since software is designed to work opimally on the fastest computer available, or perhaps a faster computer that isn't even available yet, you're always trying to keep up with your hardware. Console games on the other hand are designed to work flawlessly on the console that can't be upgraded.

Think of consoles like a Bullit, it's got the junk to get you down a hill but it's really nothing special but not too bad either. A computer can either be a Yeti DH9 or a walmart junker or anywhere in between, they'll all get you down the same hill, but obviously one will be a lot more fun than the other.

 

[mack]

Well, isnt it all just the graphics card and the ammount of ram? I only have 2 215 mb ports on my computer. Is there any way i can get new ports?

 

[Kornphlake]

There's lots of things to consider besides just the graphics card and the amount of memory. Your computer has an internal clock, yours is something like 2.4 ghz, which is pretty fast but you have to look at what that number means. There are two numbers that determine the speed of the processor, one is the front side bus (FSB) which is essentially the speed at which the rest of the components operate, including the memory speed, the graphics card speed, and whatever else you have connected to the motherboard, then there is a multiplier which is as the name denotes how much the processor can multiply the FSB. Pentiums are quad pumped which means that the FSB is multiplied by 4 at the processor automatically. So if your computer was a 2.4ghz your probabally running 800mhz processor bus. Since your processor is at 800mhz bus divide that by 4 to get your FSB so you come up with 200mhz now divide the speed of the processor 2.4 ghz or 2400mhz by the FSB, 200 and you get 12, that's your multiplier. Now with that out of the way you can say you're running 200mhz FSB X 12. That's pretty good, but I'm guessing your processor doesn't have a bus speed of 800 mhz it's probabally 666mhz or maybe even 533mhz which means your FSB is actually 166 or 133, that means your processor multiplier is 14.4 or 18, that's all fine and dandy as your processor doesn't really care (well actually it does but that's beyond my understanding) how you get to the final speed rather it's 1600 FSB X 1.5 or rather it's 1 FSB X 2400. What does matter is that the rest of your components will only operate as fast as the FSB, so if your FSB is 133 you can have 512 mb of RAM and that's great but the ram will only operate at 133mhz, or if you have DDR (which I'm sure you do) 266Mhz, that's fine but it's not as good as if your FSB were 200 Mhz then your ram would have to operate at 400mhz (I don't think there's 200mhz SDRAM)

With that what you want to avoid is putting a bottleneck in your system, you wouldn't want to put ram clocked at 166mhz into a 200mhz system because it will force the whole system to operate at 166mhz. The reverse is also true, you wouldn't want to put 400mhz ram into a computer with a fsb of 133 because you're then limiting your fast memory. Unfortunately with Dell computers the best upgrade path to add speed is to start over completely.

Hope that explanation helps some.

 

[binary visions]

Wow, Kornphlake, you're gonna kill the kid with information like that - I think I can see his brain smoking from here...

The most user-friendly elements, and the only ones that really matter if you aren't seriously into computers, are RAM, video card, and processor speed.

More RAM = better. Bigger video card = better. Higher processor speed = better.

Worrying about your front side bus speed when you're unfamilliar with computers is akin to worrying about your tire durometer when you've just started riding. If you want to get all geeky about things, sure, you can have a discussion about varying durometers and their affect on traction, but frankly, if you bought an off-the-shelf Yeti AS-X, you're gonna be fine, right?

The prime factors you need to remember:

Your computer parts work in harmony, just like your bike parts. You can put a 2005 X-Works Dorado on your Huffy, and it will only marginally improve the ride. Thus, buying the latest and greatest wonder-card is not going to make an inferior system play Halo 2.

If you don't know enough about the hardware to do serious shopping, start at a comprehensive site like www.newegg.com and use price as your comparison. If you've got a computer that's slightly older, go with a video card that's priced in the midrange. If your computer is brand new, you can go with a more expensive card. This is all part of the computer parts working in harmony - the latest and greatest card is wasted money if you only have a 1ghz system.

More memory is better. Unless you have a gig of memory, when in doubt, throw in more RAM. RAM is fast enough, and operating systems are efficient enough, that more RAM will always speed things up. What you have on your system is (2) 256mb chips. In order to upgrade, you'll have to replace a chip. Thus, if you buy a 512mb chip, you're only upgrading your computer by 256mb since you have to remove an old one to put the new one in. You can try selling the old chip on eBay but don't expect much.

The old stereotype about Dell computers being propriatary, or not worth upgrading, is outdated and incorrect.

Hope that's a little more user-friendly for you

 

[Kornphlake]

Wow, Kornphlake, you're gonna kill the kid with information like that - I think I can see his brain smoking from here...

The most user-friendly elements, and the only ones that really matter if you aren't seriously into computers, are RAM, video card, and processor speed.

More RAM = better. Bigger video card = better. Higher processor speed = better.

Worrying about your front side bus speed when you're unfamilliar with computers is akin to worrying about your tire durometer when you've just started riding. If you want to get all geeky about things, sure, you can have a discussion about varying durometers and their affect on traction, but frankly, if you bought an off-the-shelf Yeti AS-X, you're gonna be fine, right?

The prime factors you need to remember:

Your computer parts work in harmony, just like your bike parts. You can put a 2005 X-Works Dorado on your Huffy, and it will only marginally improve the ride. Thus, buying the latest and greatest wonder-card is not going to make an inferior system play Halo 2.

If you don't know enough about the hardware to do serious shopping, start at a comprehensive site like www.newegg.com and use price as your comparison. If you've got a computer that's slightly older, go with a video card that's priced in the midrange. If your computer is brand new, you can go with a more expensive card. This is all part of the computer parts working in harmony - the latest and greatest card is wasted money if you only have a 1ghz system.

More memory is better. Unless you have a gig of memory, when in doubt, throw in more RAM. RAM is fast enough, and operating systems are efficient enough, that more RAM will always speed things up. What you have on your system is (2) 256mb chips. In order to upgrade, you'll have to replace a chip. Thus, if you buy a 512mb chip, you're only upgrading your computer by 256mb since you have to remove an old one to put the new one in. You can try selling the old chip on eBay but don't expect much.

The old stereotype about Dell computers being propriatary, or not worth upgrading, is outdated and incorrect.

Hope that's a little more user-friendly for you

Sorry for the overly technical explanation. Don't listen to me just read BV's post. His analogy of a huffy with a dorado is exactly what I was trying to illustrate with techie numbers.

As far as adding more memory goes I'd say don't bother, for what it would cost to buy two 512 sticks of RAM you really won't be getting that much more performance where games are concerned. The memory will help levels load faster and you'll be able to start and exit the game faster but once the game gets started the differance will be pretty negligable. You'll have to realize though that a $700 computer will never run like a $1700 computer, but a $150 X box can come pretty close to keeping up with a $1700 computer with the advantage of more games, more online players and foolproof hardware the only disadvantages being flexibility (you can't do wordprocessing on a standard Xbox) and slightly degraded speed and graphics.

 

[mack]

So, say i were to get a new computer? What would i want to get? Any how much would it cost? I just need a tower.

 

[highlander1]

If this helps....... My mate just built me a new tower from scratch and has the following... Intel Petium 4 3.00GHz enhanced proccessor, 512Mb Ram and a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128 graphics card and 80Gb hard drive, to name a few components your aiming at to run halo etc.

He built this with mostly Intel components for about £450 but didn't charge me labour.

I play the likes of diablo, half life2 and doom3 very easily on high resolution.


See if anyone you know can build one for you and all of my components came from www.dabs.com

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

ati radeon 9800 pro.
should be nuf card for all current games and the ones comming. like 150.
checkout benchmarks on www.tomshardware.com

 

[mack]

well, what could i do to make my dell work. I mean, how hard is it to install a new mother board or 8x graphic card.

My ram slots say 256mb on the female part on the computer, there are two of them.

 

[Kornphlake]

well, what could i do to make my dell work. I mean, how hard is it to install a new mother board or 8x graphic card.

My ram slots say 256mb on the female part on the computer, there are two of them.

You won't be able to install a differant mother board, dell uses a proprietary motherboard and powersupply, you simply can't upgrade the motherboard in a dell system because upgraded parts won't fit in it. You can easily install a 8X graphics card though, the whole thing will take you maybe 3 minutes, then you have to get the drivers working which may or may not be easy, I think the Nvidia cards are supposed to be less picky about drivers than ATI but the last generation ATI cards were better performers for the price (Nvidia 5xxx series vs ATI 9xxx series.) Search Tomshardware.com and anandtech.com forums and you'll get a much better understanding of what you'll need to do with drivers, of course most of the threads are about the most recent hardware which frankly should mean nothing to you, so you'll have to dig into the archives a little bit. You might want to search for and download driver cleaner, read the instrucitons and uninstall any graphics drivers you have before installing a new card, it's supposed to prevent problems.

 

[D_D]

If you have an old dell (pre 2002?) with the proprietary supply you can get an adapter or just swap the pins around to use it with a standard motherboard.
Everything else should be standard and since you have 512mb or ram I assume it's new enough to have a standard power supply.