motherboard and graphics advice

[thebrettman]

Hello all

I have just found out that my mate wants to upgrade his pc to play some games on it. He has a dell dimension 2400 I think, but the bottom line is it has no AGP slot which was a nasty surprise!

I suggested a ram upgrade to 1gb which should be good. But then he would really be best with an AGP motherboard compatible with his 2.7ghz P4 in the dell machine and then buy a new graphics card.

Allowing probably £50-60 for the motherboard and £60- 100 for the graphics card what would you guys suggest he buys in terms of manufacturers that are reliable for the motherboard and a graphics board which performs well. He may be able to stretch that budget if that can be justified

I hope I have provided enough info here

My appreciation in advance for any replies!

 

[Xiahou]

If hes changing the mobo, hes probably best to buy a whole new pc, lol.

RAM, graphics card.... CPU.....

 

[thebrettman]

I agree with you Xiahou and I know what you are saying but originally his idea was to buy a £50 graphics card. Having explained to him why that wont work and that a new motherboard is needed for AGP he can maybe stretch to £200 for a motherboard and graphics card. Essentially that would be some major steps forward to getting a new machine but if he goes much beyond a new motherbord and AGP card- eg a new processor and case, suddenly costs are way too high.

Basicly he wants to be able to play World of Warcraft and have reasonable Graphics performance a bit into the future. I would put it to him that for £200 he is not buying top of the range equipment but on the other hand he does get to have some decent graphics so he can play a range of pc games

Cheers for your reply

 

[thebrettman]

It has just occured to me that there are plenty of pci graphics cards available. I was a bit ignorant of this. Doh!

With that in mind how does pci express and AGP compare. I know the latter is superior or course but are we talking big performance differences? Say I spend £50 on a pci card- which one might you suggest?

 

[dhw200]

PCI cards are almost as bad as integrated gfx. I believe there is a PCI Radeon 9250 out there if u want to get it though.

Im pretty sure Dell doesnt use ATX format, so you cant swap out the mobo anyway

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

I'm having doubts about that dell machine boasting PCI Express compatibility. So don't go buying a PCIe card. Only the very, very old PCI cards. The express is a relatively new technology that a dell probably wouldn't have.

Ryan