Best PCI Video Card

[OceaN]

Hey guys i'm looking for a pci video card for my friend and im wondering if anyone has any suggestions..? the cpu is a 2.8ghz celeron with 512 ram and on board video... They want to be able to play some of the newer games such as World of Warcraft or Half Life 2 does a pci card exisit that can handle these types of games..? Any help will be greatly appreciated thanks!

 

[Labtech]

If you want to play newer games, you don't want a PCI card.
Go with AGP card..

 

[Regulus]

The best card for your money currently is the 9800Pro.
The best card period is the eVga 6800.

 

[OceaN]

Labtech, I understand that but i was just wondering if possibly a pci one exists because unfortantley she doesnt have money right now to upgrade to a new computer with a AGP slot... So if anyone has any suggestions i would greatly appreciate it

 

[Cappy]

well i believe ive seen a PCI Nvidia5600 with 256mb of ram but there scarce.Unfortionately you dont have alot of choices out of the better PCI cards .Your choices on older systems are ATI 9200se/9250/9550/9600.
Nvidia 5200/5250/5500/5600 .The 9600 and the 5600 are pretty pricie and rare .You will only see a playable frame rate nothing spectacular .The lower end PCI cards will not play the games you mentioned very well.Unless that Celeron 2.8 can make a big difference.Ive never used a Celeron so i cant coment on there ability.

 

[gaara]

Good luck playing half life 2 with a Celeron...

 

[Kadahaf]

Half life can be played on a 1.2 duron...its based on the vid card for that game

 

[Quintox]

i have a 2.8 ghz celeron and 768 ram

i just bought (literally) and installed a pci slot ati radeon 256mb vid card and i can run source very nice (for me) on low settings....i can run it on high but its fps isnt good

low settings is about 40 fps for me, which is good for me

 

[Megadeth2]

My friend has a Celeron D 325J that he has overclocked to 3.8 GHz. It runs like a charm and he is using an nVidia GeFore 6600GT and he can play everything including Doom 3. Yes, Doom 3 does go a little slower, but it isn't very noticable. Other than that, everything else he plays plays exactly as it would on a spectacular Doom 3 system. Tell your friend to wait off on the video card until they can buy a new system. It really isn't worth it to buy a video card on PCI since that really will mess with performance and graphics quality. A great gaming card for the budget is the Abit R9550-Guru (Radeon 9550) and it comes with an overclocking utility so you can push it past a 9600 Pro.