Video Card suggestions

[Dan DeVille]

I mainly play Sim City 4 and my wife plays The Sims 2. What do you think are the best cards for these games? I don't want to spend more than $200 USD.

 

[C.Ingram]

Any card with an ATi or NVIDIA chipset manufactured in the last 2 years with 32Mb+ video RAM. You should be able to get one for under $40. You may want to go with a 64 MB card, though.

 

[hu_xu]

The rule for gamers is anything lower than 9600XT is not worth buying but that was a year ago. So 9800 pro since that IS the gaming mainstream card now even in the eyes of ATI.

For Nvidia, its anything below 5900 Ultra is not worth mentioning but the games you listed are not really graphics heavy so a 9250 is good enough IMO. But if you want to play games like HL2, Doom 3, or Far Cry a 9800 Pro and the best bang for $$$ IMO 6600GT will perform great or good enough depending on the settings.

I was also surprise at The Sims 2 graphic requirements though my girlfriend plays that dumb game (we're married and all that in that game...scary!) and it barely run in her 9200 system. So she installed on my rig which has a 9800 Pro. So if you plan on buying/playing that game get a 9600XT or above.

 

[aj2003]

obviously the more u spend the better ul get. i would say the msi 6600GT from www.newegg.com is the best you'll find

 

[Dan DeVille]

My mobo has one PCI Express slot so I'm looking for one of those. How good is the X700 Pro?

 

[phosho510]

just get the 9600xt or the x600xt.

 

[Ankush09]

ur not playing games with heavy graphics and u want PCI express, just get the MSI 6600GT which is currently on sale at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=14-127-147&DEPA=0
If you dont prefer nvidia cards get an ati X600XT like phosho510 said:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-429&depa=0

 

[Codeine]

I suggest the eVGA 6600 GT over the MSI, but the MSI 6600 GT will work great also.

 

[senseless]

any directx 9.0c card should be able to handle it just fine. a geforce fx5500 will work fine for what you want.

edit:

make sure it is pcie and not pcix

 

[ImUseless]

The eVGA FX5500 w/256Mb is $78 with shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-197&depa=1




The 128Mb Version is $67 with shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-207&depa=1