Novice video card questions

iwb

I have been asked to buy a pc for a friend. He wants it for his kids and they play lots of pc games. He doesn't want to spend too much on the system, say 700 max if possible. I have seen cards alone that cost most of that.
What I would like to know is what card will offer decent gaming performance with the best bang for the buck at the moment. Does a 128MB GeForce4 5200 fit the bill, or an ATI Radeon 9800 128MB? Is there enough extra grunt with a 256MB GeForce4 6800 to justify the extra cost?
I don't think his kids are looking for ultimate performance on Half Life 2 or whatever the very latest is, and if they are, he isn't willing to pay for it anyway:)
Thanks, iwb

gline

id recommend a 9800, they will give you good enuf preformace and dont cost an arm and a leg. Oh and drop the 4 after geforce, its geforce 5200 or geforce 6800, avoid the 5200 and get a 6800 if you want to pay the extra €'s

iwb

Thanks for the advice. What about a radeon X300SE?

gline

iwb wrote:

Thanks for the advice. What about a radeon X300SE?

no sure never seen or used them

Ciaran500

The X300SE is a PCI-E card only. You will need a AGP card.

Here's a chart for performane of current graphics cards: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-08.html (click on the bottom for other game benchs)


PCI-E one here: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041222/index.html

jessy

this one is good enough for most games (not on max res ) but very good value.