Need to upgrade an X1800 XT - Limited Budget

[Leyawiin]

My sister has a hand-me-down rig from spare parts I put together for her a while back. It has an Athlon 64 X2 5200+ @ 2.6 Ghz, two GB of RAM, Win XP and a Radeon X1800 XT. Her monitor is also an old one I gave her - 1280x1024 res.

She not a big gamer, but lately she's becoming less satisfied with LotRO, Oblivion and Fallout 3 with her current PC. I think the rest of the rig is fundamentally sound, but am trying to figure out what would be a good upgrade for the GPU (which is the oldest part of her PC). This time I don't have one to give her, so she would be buying it herself. She's a college student so money is pretty tight - she only has around $50 to spare for it. I've been trying to figure out what she could get for that small amount that would actually be a noticeable upgrade from the X1800 XT. Would an HD 4650 be enough of an improvement at that low res to be worth it?

 

[blanketyblank]

I'd say a 4650 is not bad at that res. Not great, but certainly playable.
If you could find a cheap maybe used 4770 or 4850 that would be better though.
Maybe 8800 or 9800 could fall in that budget as well.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4650-agp,2383-8.html

 

[Leyawiin]

I'll start checking flea-bay and such for used. I guess it doesn't matter since the rest of her PC is old parts - lol. Oh, she does have an Antec 650W, so power isn't an issue.

 

[sandorski]

Fallout 3 worked quite nicely with a similar Rig(X2 3800 for cpu) and a Radeon 4850. Should be a vast improvement.

 

[extra]

Uhhhh, she has PCI express, right? My advice would be try to find a used (or with a rebate offer) 4770/4850 or 9800 or maybe 9600...

 

[sandorski]

Uhhhh, she has PCI express, right? My advice would be try to find a used (or with a rebate offer) 4770/4850 or 9800 or maybe 9600...

Oh, good question.

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

Should be an AM2 board, so I would imagine.

 

[MentalIlness]

If you "or her" decide to sell that X1800XT....hit me up.

 

[Leyawiin]

Yes, its AM2 board with PCI-E. I do have an 8800 GTX with an AC Accelero I recently retired, but she can't have it (she asked already - lol). That's like a piece of history and no one's getting it! It was the card after the X1800 XT I passed to her rig.

I'll take a look for a used HD 4850 or HD 4770 (or HD 4830 maybe?). That should be O.K. with the X2 5200+. Thanks for helping me kick this around guys.

 

[RussianSensation]

GT240 could be a cheap upgrade for $55: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-059-_-Product

Benches: http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/ati_radeon_hd_5570,4.html

A used 4850 or 4770 would be faster though.

 

[evolucion8]

Uhhhh, she has PCI express, right? My advice would be try to find a used (or with a rebate offer) 4770/4850 or 9800 or maybe 9600...

I don't recall seeing an X1800XT in AGP flavors, but with such CPU, it would work fine with an HD 4650, anything faster than that will experience some bottlenecking, not very severe, but a HD 4850 is the highest bet that I would take.

 

[Leyawiin]

Well, I popped for an HD 4670 for her. I'll eat the extra $20 it cost to shut her up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-854-_-Product

Think it will be a decent match for the X2 5200+. Thanks again for the help guys.