Budget PCI-Express card recommendations?

mauldooku · Post by **mauldooku** » 2005-08-01 11:32pm

A month and a half ago, I finally bought the bullet and picked up a new Desktop. At heart, though, I'm a budget man, so I bought one of the cheaper models available. Here are the specs:

eMachines T6212

AMD Athlon 64, 3200+ 2.0 GhZ

1.5 Gigs Ram (It came with 512, but I added a Gig).

Integrated ATi Radeon Xpress 200 Graphics

I mainly play older games, such as Starcraft: Broodwar and Half-Life mods like Natural Selection, so this has been perfectly fine for a bit. However, I recently went out and picked up some new games, and have encountered some problems. On Doom3, it's laggy at the bare-bones settings, while on Ut2k4 I can squeeze decent frames out of the medium settings (Onslaught and Assault require me to drop the settings to minimum, though). Basically, I'm worried that in a year, none of the games coming out will be playable on this computer. The motherboard doesn't have an AGP slot, but it does have a PCI-E. Any suggestions for budget PCI-E cards? I can't go more than than 100$, preferably less than 75$. I am, however, willing to wait a year or so for prices to drop.

So, SD.net's hardware junkies, any thoughts?

P.S.: Any idea how well I'll be able to run HL2?

EDIT: I've heard that eMachines generally don't have the power supply to run discreet graphics cards. I'm a hardware newbie, so is this a consideration I have to make, or is it bullshit?

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-08-01 11:46pm

About the powersuppy: Yes, it is a big consideration. Alot of todays cards can draw large amounts of power. I had to upgrade my machine from a 250watt Psu to a 350 before it would run my new 6600GT. Speaking of which, I highly recommend the 6600GT. The jump from my FX 5200 to it was incredible. Plus, the PCI-E version shouldn't be more than 150 bucks nowadays. If you can't afford another 50 bucks, though, I have no idea of another budget card.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-08-02 12:48am

A 6600GT is your best bet.

Power Supply Guide

Use the Guide to figure out how much power your computer will probably draw on the 12V after installing a 6600GT, and compare it against how much power your power supply can supply on 12V. (there should be a sticker somewhere on the power supply that lists max amperages at different voltages)

If your power supply is easily able to handle it, I wouldn't worry. If it's right on the edge or even can't cut it, then the Guide should be able to help you select a new power supply.

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-08-02 03:50am

A 6600GT might be too expensive, search for a stock 6600, or a 6600LE(not THAT bad).

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-08-02 04:47am

Tiger Ace wrote:A 6600GT might be too expensive, search for a stock 6600, or a 6600LE(not THAT bad).

Meh, it's only 50 bucks more.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-08-02 04:53am

GeForce 6600 PCI-e, $102.99.

If you wanna go any cheaper, then you've got a GeForce 6200 PCI-e, $83.

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-08-02 04:58am

SPOOFE wrote:GeForce 6600 PCI-e, $102.99.

If you wanna go any cheaper, then you've got a GeForce 6200 PCI-e, $83.

However, I'd reccomend staying away from any card with TC(turbo cache) in its name, useless system RAM guzzling feature.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-08-02 05:56pm

Didn't link to a Turbocache model.

Tiger Ace · Post by **Tiger Ace** » 2005-08-02 06:02pm

I'm just warning him so that if he sees an insanely cheap card with TC to know to stay away.