Will this Graphics Card do?

String

Im buying a comp form dell tomorow... p4 2.80, 1gig ram and 128 MB PCI Express™ x16 ATI Radeon™ X300 SE inc DVI/VGA-TV out via S-video port graphics card...... I know nothing about graphics cards and was wondering if it will do...... i don want any choppy gameplay!

Creamy Goodness

pci xpress are good cards i didn't even know they were released.

but if i was you i would build my own pc you can save a couple 100 euros

String

im only 16 and on a tight budget . I built my own on dell.... its a Dimension 8400

String

o... and im getting 1 gig ram for price of 512 and 160 gig hd for price of 80 which saves me alot of money

Winters

You will be sorted for both Battlefield 1942, Vietnam and also Battlefield 2 next year. The PCI Express cards are very nice indeed.

String

wot about Half-life 2?

Creamy Goodness

yeh you'll be sorted , no problems there, but i'm just saying that you could in theory save a couple of 100 by building yourself, it's not that hard.

but if you don't feel up for it then the dell is fantastic.

*edit* half-life 2 will be the same story as the BF series.

You'll be sorted, basically you will be able to throw any game out now at it and play flawlessy and throw HL2 and Doom3 at it and they'll run nicely.

also don't forget duke nukem forever

String

well.. im only pasying 1190 euro which i think is fantastic beacause its the best deal by far ive found

Winters

Originally posted by DrMorphine
wot about Half-life 2?

After Battlefield 2 coems out you might find yourself playing HL2 a lot less.

String

lol probobly, im a big fan of fps like cs but my ****e 80mhz comp can bearly handle that but i hav dsl so i cant w8 to play battlefeild online... and i was wondering if Vietnam was any good because my friend said it is very disapointing

ARKANGEL

he doth spake BLASHPHEMY:p

Woden

that graphics card is nothing spectacular don't be fooled by the fact thats it PCIe thats just the interface and no indication of the performance of the card

it should do battlefield ok enough but its no 9800pro

a benchmark i saw for the X300 pushed out a 3dmark03 of 2800 or so while a similar rig with a 9800pro would give a score of about 5800.

bear in mind you have the SE edition, special edition which will be of lower specification than the actual X300 and will thus have a lower score.

the X300 is the lower end range of the X800, comparable to the 9200's of the 9800 range i would think.

thinking about i'd try to avoid it if i could and get a decent graphics card, minimum recommendation of a radeon 9600 pro or if you can manage it a radeon 9800 pro.

see if dell are offering the X600 range also this should be the mid range ati offering of the new cards

Cows With Guns

After Battlefield 2 coems out you might find yourself playing HL2 a lot less.

Haha, funny one!

Sleipnir

Originally posted by DrMorphine
well.. im only pasying 1190 euro which i think is fantastic beacause its the best deal by far ive found

You'd get a far better machine for that money if you built it yourself. Really, it's not hard and plenty of resources on the web to help.

Jim

Originally posted by DrMorphine
lol probobly, im a big fan of fps like cs

This is your first and only warning. Next time its a ban.

CitySickness

I managed to put together a 3ghz P4 system with 9800pro from Dell for about the same price, about 2 months ago.

No PCI Express, but it's still a pretty hefty system, and plays BF:V at max settings without a hitch (unless you want fancy-pants options like AA and AF, in which case forget about it).

String

i played bf 1942 yesterday on my freinds **** comp with intefrated graphics and it ran pretty well on 800x600 with nice enough graphics... wots up with that

Woden

i used to run it half decently at 800*600 on a 32mb geforce 2mx on a p3 with half a gig of ram.

ram makes a big difference for BF especially on loading times, i doubt your friends comptuer will handle vietnam very well with intergrated graphics.

i run it at max detail at 1024*768 on that radeon 9800pro you linked in the other thread

Nietzschean

hrm waiting on meh 6800 ultra to arrive to , hrm i wonder what bf will make of it



though i've ordered a 19" tft with it, card has dual DVI out, should i ditch the tft and spend da dosh on a high end crt?


hrmmmmmm 21" CRT insteadddd i think sooooo
http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECS04769&productID=55525
probally that if ocuk were lie'n about shiping my tft + gfx card today(which given that they haven't shipped all the pre-orders in the que ahead of me i'd say is quite likely)

EgorTrooper

if you want a good CRT go with Iiyama, they're brilliant

Dancing_Priest

I would have to say that you would be a fair bit better off , buying what you need from komplett , for 1200 euro you could make a hell of a system , mine came to about 600 euro 18 months ago and it still handles vietnam nicely (9500 modded to a pro) . it really is not too hard to do and you would be alble to get all the advice you need right here. Plus , you will be able to upgrade when you want without any headaches. Im upgrading the brothers dell , and its going to involve drilling a new mobo tray and rewiring the PSU and I'll also have to doodle up some sort 3.5 inch drive bay as well

EgorTrooper

Dell have changed their tune in recent years and made their machines non-standard, it will be their downfall, most PC vendors who have done that before have failed... idiots

It's already started to change as in most people who know what the story is are not recommending Dell's anymore whereas in the past they potentially would have.

uberpixie

Dell have changed their tune in recent years and made their machines non-standard, it will be their downfall, most PC vendors who have done that before have failed... idiots It's already started to change as in most people who know what the story is are not recommending Dell's anymore whereas in the past they potentially would have.

Sorry, but thats utter C O C K.

1. Compaq have been using their ****e Proprietary parts in their ****e boxes since the days of the K6/P2. That never hurt them.

2. Dell are currantly the biggest and most profitable OEM over the last few years: use of propriety parts has never hurt them. They were one of the few PC compaies of late to actually make a profit over the last few years in a very big downturn in the market. I doubt they are idiots.......

3. The only people who would see the use of non standard parts as a dead end are the people most likely to build: not the people dell sell computers to.

4. If you actually look at when you are actually upgrading your 1337 box of gaming hapenis to the next gen: you are replacing the mobo, CPU, PSU, RAM. You get to reuse the hard drives, GFX card, monitor , optical drives , sound card and case.

With dell you can't reuse the case... But you can still reuse everything else on that list.

The only issue you will ever run into with dell proprietary parts is if the PSU dies on you: it's a bugger to get a new one, especially if your machine is an old one. you have to search for a 2nd hand part on line form a spares reseller.

Thats the only real snag with dell's proprietary parts.

There is nothing stopping someone from slapping in new ram or a new gfx card in their dell or a hard drive.

So all in all there is no problem at all.......

Nietzschean

Originally posted by uberpixie
Sorry, but thats utter C O C K.

1. Compaq have been using their ****e Proprietary parts in their ****e boxes since the days of the K6/P2. That never hurt them.

2. Dell are currantly the biggest and most profitable OEM over the last few years: use of propriety parts has never hurt them. They were one of the few PC compaies of late to actually make a profit over the last few years in a very big downturn in the market. I doubt they are idiots.......

3. The only people who would see the use of non standard parts as a dead end are the people most likely to build: not the people dell sell computers to.

1 - Incase you missed it compaq have suffered horribly....sales are woefully low on consumer pc's.
2 - Why Dell are profitable and their use of OEM parts are more or less unrelated, it only makes a negligble impact on their profitability, if you walk around one of their plants you'll see why they make stupid profits....
3 - Well personally i'm happy and do build my own boxes but i still don't see a problem with a dell, as you quite rightly pointed out the vast majority of stuff out of a dell box is all re-useable


Alll in all though i do agree with your point, and your summary of his statement is quite accurate imo.

C Fodder

And compaq are now using more standard parts than a few years ago !

Dancing_Priest

I love fiddling around with my box and doing silly things with it (setting up a raid 0 array as my storage device when I get back from work), Id never never never buy a dell for games. But if I was running an office I'd only ever buy a dell , for 500-600 euro you get a flat screen monitor and a computer that will run without any problem whatsoever for years unend.
We have a few in the garage , all of different ages and compared to other computers we have they give no problems at all , compared to another one we bought from a small builder which gave a few small problems , (the builder was allways there though). and thats where they make their money , buisnesses buying ten or 100 computers that they know wont break down.

Nietzschean

now that u mention dell's h/w relyability....
2yrs ago got 13 x 1.8ghz p4's with 15" tft's, over the last year i've sent 10 of those 13 tft's back to be replaced,
13 2ghz p4's in almost a year ago now, only one of those gone back so far......(also a dodgy psu on another of this batch..)

BloodBath

Hey if it's not too late and you haven't already ordered something then look at this.

click

That system is easily at least twice as good as that dell system for the same price. You will not get a machine as good as this cheaper than this even if you built it yourself.


BloodBath

po0k

This thread is funny

"I built a Dell", "PCIe cards, yeah, dems is good ones" etc.

Original Poster:
If you want easy nights' sleep, get yourself a Dell.
When you're ready to get stuck in and make the commitment, build your own and reap the rewards.

And the X300 is the lower-end of the ATI range. It's a castrated card.

Micheal Wittman

should do ok, i'd say

Azza

I be weary of dell pc's I'm not a fan of there computers at all.

Build your own is the cheapest and not too hard but the pc Bloodbath linked to is good value I would recommend it as well.