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I recently purchased a new computer. Since I got it as part of a sale, I couldn't choose the exact configuration, so now I'm looking to get a graphics card for it separately. However, Since I'm not that savvy regarding these cards, I'm hoping someone can give me a bit of advice.

The computer is using an E6600 processor with 4 Gb of RAM. The onboard graphics "card" is an Intel GMA X4500. I'll be running Windows 7 on it.

The computer will primarily used for Office and browsing, but I'd like the capability to play some games on it. I don't play any of the graphically "heavy" games, but rather mostly strategy games and the occasional CRPG. So I don't need a top-of-the-line card.

Givent he money I'm willing to spend, I see the following options:

Radeon: HD4550, HD 5450, HD6450, HD6570*
GeForce: GT210, GT220, GT240, GT430, GT440, GT520, GT530, 8400GS, 9400GT

All the cards come with 512 or 1024 Mb memory (both options exist), except for the GT440 which has a 2Gb option; most of them have a memory interface width of 64-bits.

*This card as at the edge of what I'm willing to spend, so it's not really in the running unless all the others are bad.

I've been looking through online reviews on these cards, but most of them have (as is often the case) both good and bad reviews. The problem is that I don't know how seriously to take them - especially the bad revies, of which I get the impression in some cases that theu are written by people to whom any card which can't handle heavy-duty gaming is crap.

Can anyone recommend (or warn me about) any of the above cards?

Thx

Is this post actually from 2009 but got clogged up in the intertubz and just made it through today? None of those cards are good gaming cards.

What specific games do you want to play?

What is your budget for a video card?

What country do you live in?

Yeah, well, as it happens my "gaming backlong" extends to then anyway. I'm looking to play stuff like Dragon Age, Starcraft II, and the like.

I'm looking for something under $100 or so, but I'm from Israel - the better cards tend to be significantly more expensive relative to their US prices.

The 6570 is the minimum required to play modern games (e.g. Skyrim, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2) at 1680 x 1050 / 30 FPS. If you have a 1080p monitor, I would strongly recommend at least a Radeon 5750, otherwise you will have choppy frame rate or extra blur from running at non-native resolution (my wife is still running a 5770 in her PC and it is adequate for 1080p non-twitch games). If budget is an issue, you can get those used for $60ish on Ebay. Also all the mid-range card prices should drop over the next two months as both vendors refresh their mid-tier cards.

I don't know what prices are like where you are, but I have a 1gb Asus Radeon 6850 HD card and it runs great. I'm having some driver issues that mean's I'll probably need to format, but it's due to legacy drivers from my old card. It autodetected my old card when running MW3 and SR3 but I manually adjusted to high settings and it worked great. Dragon Age looks great.

I think I'll take Starglider's advice and wait a bit - apart from anything else, my brother should be coming from the States on a visit in a bit, so I can probably get it cheaper if he brings it over even if prices don't drop.

A quesiton though - that meas that in the meantime I'll be using the onboard graphics - is the X4500 sufficient to handle Windows 7 (or would I need to switch Aero off)?