New card options?

laneo

n00b
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
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Right now, i have a sony vaio. 512 mb ram, 80 gb hard drive and a Nvidia geforce mx 440 gfx card. Ive been running this computer for about 4 years, and everything is fine. Sure ive re-formatted the hard drive through system recovery, but those were my own faults. I play very few games, mainly FPS, the only new ones i have are HL2 and Quake 4 (which isnt very new) heh. I bought FEAR, yesterday, with all hopes set aside from playing it, i knew something was going to go wrong. It gave me the error message saying that my graphics card was not supported. So i was just like..hmm..okay 30 bucks down the drain. I was wondering would a XFX 7600 work or a FX 5500, im on a tight budget and i cant really spend too much right now. What are some possible conflicts in buying a new video card? I have installed hard drives, cd-rom drives, at college i do it almost every day, but we never tampered with a gfx card yet. Any risks? thanks.
 
FEAR on an MX440? :eek:

Mainly, you need to know if you have PCI-E or AGP available. If your stuck with PCI, your gonna be bummed. And yes, the 7600GT is worlds beyond the MX440. Even a 7300GT would work wonders - at around 80 bucks.
 
I'm guessing it's AGP, since i have the same card! :p

A 7600GT, or even a GS, would make a world of difference. Just make sure you get an AGP card, if the MX440 is in fact AGP, too.
 
well there is a utility on my computer that is called AGPutil. so im guessing the MX440 is an AGP. I can check too, later on. Honestly i want to build my own computer. SSF but i dont have the money. I go to college for 18 hours, and nobody is hiring, at least not part time. bummer. I do get 1,500 in the summer from my scholarship (left over) and i have 700 right now, but i use it for gas/food. But thanks for your help. I appreciate it. Im off to play CS. :D
 
I'd look on ebay for a 9800xt or a fx5900. Both will offer a large improvement over the mx440, and can be had for < $40 if you're patient. I would stay away from the lower end fx series. I've tried quake 4 on a 5200, 5500, and 5600. only the 5600 could even maintain playable framerates.

What processor do you have? depending on that, a 7600 might be overkill.
 
I have a Pentium 4 running at 2.4 ghz if you are wondering. Whats weird is that HL2 runs perfect on my comp, its crystal clear. I heard that mx440 can cause a problem with hl2. Guess i got lucky?
 
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