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Best gamer video card for under $75?

M

Macro2

Diamond Member
Have to upgrade a Celeron (I think it's about 600 Mhz) system with integrated video so that it will run games decently. Right now it's a bit jittery.
Figure I'd find a add in video card? Any ideas what the best low end card would be?
Other alternative is get a Asus 220 nforce1 board for $72 and $40 Duron.
 
celery is a bottleneck....better alternative is to get a ECS K7S5A and Tbred B 1700XP. You can reuse your old SDRAM with this board. Just add in the Sapphire Radeon 8500LE for $72 (hopefully it didnt go up) and your set. The asus nforce board with IGP is also a decent option if you dont want to buy an expensive AGP card, but you'll have to get DDR ram.
 
well i would go for a duron over a 600 celeron but that would still leave you in need of a good video card. i am in canada so dont know the prices for us but low end i would suggest either gforce 4200 or ati 9000 . now if you cant afford either one of those then your going to have to go for either a g4 mx which i hear suck or with a radeon 7000 series which are ok but low end.

i would say if this is going to be your video card for the long road then try for the 9000 becuase of the directx support will last you longer than the 4200 although the 4200 overclocks good from ewhat i hear.

another alturnative would be go with maybe a kyro2 board, it is cheap and i used one up until the 9700 came out.

anyway i am sure alot of people will offer different opinions but my suggestion is get the best bang for your buck.
 
Originally posted by: human2k
celery is a bottleneck....better alternative is to get a ECS K7S5A and Tbred B 1700XP. You can reuse your old SDRAM with this board. Just add in the Sapphire Radeon 8500LE for $72 (hopefully it didnt go up) and your set. The asus nforce board with IGP is also a decent option if you dont want to buy an expensive AGP card, but you'll have to get DDR ram.
Click to expand...

ok i agree with this , didnt know the xp was so cheap and yea that will blow away a celeron. the 8500 is a nice card and i am wondering what the price difference would be for a 9000 pro or non pro compared to it.
 
Does the celeron mobo even have an AGP slot? Most celeron systems sold with integrated video just had PCI.

Also, what kind of case is it? Dell uses proprietary cases and non-standard power supplies that fry non-Dell motherboards so be careful buying a new mobo for it, or buy a cheap new case & power from Newegg for $40-50 shipped.
 
No offense but LegionX doesn't know what he is talking about, and good luck finding a Ti4200 for $75.

The best gamer card for $75 is 64MB Radeon 8500LE
 
I was thinking that too. I've seen the 9000 (non pro) for around 70 bucks and I have no idea where a Ti4200 came into that.


Here is another reccomendtaion - Geforce2 GTS-V - best 50 bucks I have ever spent (and that was a long time ago, you might find it cheaper now). Its a slightly slower Geforce2, but you can oc it back up par.


But it really depends how you want to approach this. Do you want a mobo with upgradability? If so, then I would reccomend a Nforce2.

But if you just want whatever right now and don't care for upgradeability you have opened up two options (and neither involve Tbred bs 😉 . Newegg and other sites jacked up the b price to rake in the cash)

a) You get a mobo that supports your old Ram (a few people mentioned the ECS K7S5a) and a 1700+ (49.99)...and as for the videocard you could spend anywhere from 40-80 dollars

b) You could get a mobo that will take in only DDR ram and potentially onboard video (ala nforce1 Asus for 71.99) with the 1700+ again.

In A you don't have to buy new ram, in B you don't have to buy a videocard. Regardless going option two there isn't much further you could go even now with the limit on the FSB (though many kt333s will accept the 333mhz chips like the Epox 8k5a2+)

If you go 1, you will have a LOT of upgradbility but it will come at a price. By going the nforce2 route you are plunking around 140 dollars on a Mobo, another 60-130 dollars on pc2700 ram (256 for 60 and 512 for 130), again 49.99 for the 1700+, and then 50-80 dollars again on a videocard. But this would bascially entail a new computer on its own because once you get these parts you will wonder and ask yourself "why should i stick a ATA33 harddrive on this when I can get a WD 8 meg cahce 80gig for 110..." and then realize you need a new case.


By the way, don't older boards have problems with the new cores? Now that i think of it I hesitate to reccomend that ECS because its one of the older boards out there



EDIT:

As for the Radeon9000- don't bother with it. The cost isn't justified especially when you compare it to the pro- you might as well get that.
 
Originally posted by: newbiepcuser
How about Geforce 3?
Click to expand...

The only GeForce 3 model around $75 is the 64 MB Ti200. They are decent cards, but the Radeon 8500 would be slightly faster and have nicer 2D image quality.

 
R8500 First choice ...
GF3 second choice ... from time to time ... I have seen GF3 (non TI, a bit faster than TI200) for under $80 ... usually you can find the TI200s for close to 70 bucks ...
 
Most of the other people have given good suggestions, but I'll throw out another option:

ATi's partners have re-released the 8500 as the Radeon 9100. You can pick up the 64MB versions for reasonably cheap. SOME of them are relatively low-clocked (you really have to check)--but most of them can be overclocked to "retail" 8500 speeds (since they were manufactured on a very mature process). I believe Newegg had the 64MB Powercolor and Sapphire versions for around $75.

Best of luck!
 
One thing to watch for, if you have a 600 Celeron with integrated graphics there might be a chance you mobo does not even have an AGP slot so you might have to go with a PCI graphics card. Just warning you, I had it happen to me a year and a half ago, bought a Geforce2 Ultra and open it up and no AGP slot. If your computer was some cheapo internet special you better make shure.
 
A small warning here:

When you go from intel's integrated graphics to a graphics card, you have a very high chance of having to reformat.
 
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