This is a guide to help you make decisions on a possible upgrade, it is not a comprehensive Dell upgrade guide but one done by myself using information I've gathered and learned over the years

 

Howdy all! I'm making this post because I see a lot of the same questions asked over and over again. I hope this post clears alot of questions up! Feel free to bump it or ask questions here!

First up :

Q : What should I keep my eyes open for if I am getting a video card?

A : Well, the answer here is simple : What are you planning to do with your PC?

• For surfing the internet, any card will do. Even then, I'd recommend at least a 64meg video card. Most cards come with a minimum of 128megs these days.
• For video editing : I'd pick a mid range video card with 128 or 256megs of ram. ATi is usually better in this department. If I remember correctly video editing relies a lot on CPU/Ram much more than a video card.
• For gaming : Get the fastest with alot of ram you can get in your budget, but keep in mind that ATi and NVidia may perform better in certain games than the other. The minimum I'd suggest is a GeForce 7600GS or ATi Radeon X1600 XT if you want to play most of todays games.
• 3D Program stuffs : Get the best you can, and ask others that use the programs what their advice would be. I'd suggest 512megs of ram on the card though. Ask the vendor of the card what they would recommend (go straight to www.nvidia.com or http://ati.amd.com and ask around there)

 

So you're pondering what card to get. "Dang that GeForce 7300 looks attractive when I'm building my Dimension 521, but why is that ATi Radeon X1300 Pro twice as much? They both have 256 megs of ram, good DVI video output and even though that X1300 Pro costs more I think that the NVidia will cover my gaming needs for now."

 

WRONG

 

Here's why, with a bit more info on video cards and how they work :

Video cards have a GPU (processes the graphics for you) and memory (stores textures to be used). Some video games these days are also using the video card to process in game physics in conjunciton with the CPU/RAM. There's also add-on cards that will handle the physics for the PC but the game has to be programmed to use them (Ageia is the most common add-on card). The video card can make or break an otherwise great platform.

Most video cards have a few things that you have to watch for. Some vendors are sneaky as they misadvertise and if you don't read the small print or aren't educated you can get shafted.

• Ram's Bus Speed : This is the most important aspect of the video card when it comes to where the bottleneck will be in regards to performance. There are 3 common memory bus speeds you have to watch for : 64bit, 128bit and 256bit. Stay far away from 64bit. Far far away. 128bit is ok, but 256 is the best.
• The GPU Features : What I'm getting at here are the pixel and vertex shaders. Do not get a card without any, or pick a card that has something like 128mhz where there should be a number like 4,8,20 or something of the sort. The more you get, the better off you are. These directly impact today's gaming. Period.  You'll also see Core and Clock speed. They mean nothing without a full set of features and good memory performance.
• Ram type : Keep an eye open on this. Look closely for GDDR, GDDR2,GDDR3. The higher the number at the end, the better off that memory is and the less of a chance that vendor is trying to put some piece of garbage into your hands.
• Video Card "Features" : Some video cards have features that are supposed to increase their power and performance. Dear lord please read closely. One of the biggest shams is looking at a low cost card and seeing something like Take a reallll close look on that box when you see that video card has some nifty feature. In this case, that 7300 is only packing 128megs of ram. What?!? Are you serious? Sure I am. That Turdbocache actually allocates up to 256megs of system ram to emulate video card ram. And you know what? That bogs your PC down hard on a lower end card with that feature (basically it's useless on any card with less than 256megs with a 128bit memory bus)
• Model Tag : there's a lot of different models of cards out there, each with their own performance moniker at the end that denotes performance of each. When looking at these stay away from LE and try to avoid GS, or cards with no 2-3 letter's on the end. These are usually the slower cards. Also, compare different brand names. BFG might have a 7900GT out that stomps all over that EVGA 7900XT because of their agressive memory and core timings.

Message Edited by taylor78 on 04-16-2007 07:38 AM