Which 3D graphics card???

Hey all. I'm trying to upgrade my computer and I need some advice on what card to buy without spending a fortune. I found the "EVGA 256-A8-N313-LX GeForce FX 5500 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 8X" Video Card
at newegg for $50. Looks like it should do the trick to run No Limits smooth as silk. Any suggestions?

Thanks![:D]

Gigabyte ga-7n 400 pro MOBO
Athalon Xp 3200+ processor
AGP 8x graphics slot
1.5 gigs DDR memory

Well I guess the question is, what do you have in there now and what do you think is a fortune to spend on a graphics card?

Here are two cards that are more expensive (5 and 25 more) both of which are much better then a 5500.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131262
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102085

if you don't want to go for an Ati, look for a nvidia 6800 or a 7 series card.

Cool. Thanks!

I wouldn't buy the FX (5) series, they were plagued with problems aparently

I have an NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS, AGP 8x, 512 mb DDR2. No Limits and NL Fairground work like a dream with it at the highest detail levels. No Limits suffers a bit of slowdown if you add in a bunch of .3ds but for everything else it's smooth as silk.

RCT3 also works and looks great before you add peeps to the mix; at which point your memory consumption inflates like crazy.

It was about $120 which isn't bad considering it was probably $300 or so when it came out.

EDIT!!: One thing about AGP; it's being phased out right now. The next PC you get may only have a PCI-Express (PCIe) slot (as opposed to an AGP slot.) If so, then the AGP card will be useless.

Try get more mony andbuy a new PC instead of keeping upgradin, it is cheaper then when you buy new parts and have to buy a new card because it doesnt fit...

It all depends on your slots on your Motherboard. You don't buy a card and hope it fits you find what your motherboard supports and then buy the right card. If you want a nice Graphics card I would get GeForce 7000 Series card. If you are trying to run Vista it will work great if not Games are awesome in it. If you really want a good card get the GeForce 8000 Series. Those cards are really something...

If you buy another AGP card now you will have tobuy a new motherboard next time cause you can't find AGP Motherboard a lot right now

Originally posted by topdrag

If you want a nice Graphics card I would get GeForce 7000 Series card. If you are trying to run Vista it will work great if not Games are awesome in it.

Why even suggest the 7 series? The 8800GT is the best bang for your buck right now!

Because I don't know his price range. I don't know if he wants to spend 250 bucks for a new card.

Considering he stated he wants to spend around 50 bucks I would have to say any 8000 series card is out of his price range. Besides if he is still on AGP it is better to get a really cheap card now to potentially boost his graphics performance rather than spending a bunch more money on new MB/Processor/Ram/PCiX video card.

A good card for you would be a Radeon X1K mid-range card like the one Coaster Individual gave you. The good thing about that is that, not only do you get good performance, but it comes with some multimedia stuff too that's pretty useful. I think it comes with something that lets you transcode video via the gpu. If you're not interested/ don't want to spend extra money on those features, a 9 series card would be great. Seeing as how Newegg does not stock X series cards anymore, the 9 series would be the way to go.

Having said that, it would be wise to go ahead and upgrade to a PCIe platform if you can. If not though, your system looks like it will last you a while. You've got enough memory, you'll soon have a good video card, and an AthlonXP will last for a long time.

Thanks to all for the input. I went ahead and built a new computer:

Abit KN8-Sli MOBO
AMD X2 4200+ Processor
GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express Graphics card
2 Gigs of ram

Everything works flawlessly. I can run NL at high settings with no problem. Thanks again to everybody. [:D]