PCI Graphics Cards?

A while back i made a thread saying i needed help with my ATI Radeon 9250 graphics card. the responses i got where pretty much dont go with PCI go with AGP and so on and so on... i have done some research on my computer and on what grpahics cards are out there (non i can te3lll are good so far) and finally found out that my computer has 3 PCI slots (why put 3?!?!?!!?) so now the question is which PCI graphics card to get (people who are just gonna post and say AGP is the way to go DONT i dont have a AGP slot remember )

Hmmm......I posted on your other thread, and I thought you said that you do have AGP, but w/e. I would go with NVIDIA for PCI personally. Do some searches on the internet for NVIDIA cards to compare benchmark tests with other PCI cards to see which is best for the money.

Those extra PCI slots are not just for Video Cards. Good quality sound cards and network cards can use up those PCI slots, but your probably using onboard sound, and networking thru USB so those PCI slots are vacant and are there just incase you need them.



Your comments:
When you open your box and look at the board, is there a brown slot thats right above the 3 pci slots you mentioned? It would be slightly offset from the pci slots. If you have it, the brown slot is the AGP slot.

damn you rememberd what i siad:/ ya i lied i just guessed thinkin "cmon if i dont have a AGP slot what kind of comuter do i have?" without actually looking but ok i was looking at some nVidia graphics cards anyway. any specific ones u recomend? thanks for the help

nope i dont see any brown slots above the 3 PCI slots.. i checked Dell for my Computer specs it said it comes with 3 PCI Slots.... i wish i had my dads computer... he has 2GB on board RAM and a PCI-E Slot which currently has a Radeon X300 SE 256MB graphics card in it..... >.<

Here's a couple of decent PCI cards. If you wana order from the internet I can give you the website if you message me, or check your local best buy or frys store, they probably have these. I prefer the PNY brand over others.

Attachment 16096


hope this helps.

thanks wsmcasey for helping me on both threads i made as for the website link im gonna check out best buy so thats ok and my spending limit can go up to $150 so anything better for that price than what you got there? i mean my ATI Radeon 9250 cost more if not then il make a search for both of those on bestbuy and thanks again

Pretty much the best PCI card you're going to get is the Geforce 5700LE, or the 5500. Don't waste your money on 256MB of video RAM unless there's no price difference, the card isn't powerful enough to need that much memory (i.e., by the time you get to a high enough resolution or AA/AF level to need more than 128MB, the GPU is bogged down anyway). IF you find a card at a retail store, it will cost a lot more than ordering it online.

I use the FX 5200 and it works fine at lower visual settings.

RAM (system RAM) is more important than the card.

Fx5200 128mb DDr

This is also 128-bit card

Several months ago when I last looked into this, the best PCI cards you could get were the Geforce FX5600 and the 5700LE. The 5700LE has the advantage of shader model 2.0 support, but its a little slower from a clock speed standpoint, as I recall. You should be able to get either one of those cards for what you are willing to spend.

ok, just so everyone understands, OP asked for PCI solutions. we also know that for the cost/performance ratio and the budget we are working with, one could in theory buy an agp motherboard and card that would outperform any pci graphics card.

from what i can tell at dell support, the highest end PCI card available is the Geforce 6200, which runs at roughly $100:
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merch...AFFIL=FRG&NR=1

i can tell you that my tv box runs on a p3 900mHz, win XP, 512 mb ram, and a 5700LE pci graphics card and i can get 20-30fps in GW on medium-ish settings. personally, i would upgrade ram first on your system, as i would not expect much of a performance increase over the 9250 anyhow.

Anyone know any good sites UK preferbly where I can buy one of these?