Graphic cards

Hello to everyone and happy whatever. I want to upgrade my video card but i don't if it would be better to up grade my system? i have a gateway 500x p4 1.8 Ghz with a 2.0 AGP 4x slot and my current card is a 64MB nvidia GeForce2 MX400 w/dvi & tv out. I'm not a big time gamer but more to photo video side of things. whatya think. thanks schmurt P.S. i guess you can figure out that i'm new at this!!!

 

How much ram do you have, i'd suggest atleast 512mb of system memory. What is running slow on your machine? I might recommend a ATI 9xxx or 8xxxx video card for better imaging and 2d quality. It just depends on what exactly you are trying to do.

Is it still photo editing, video encoding/decoding?

 

I would also recommend at least 512MB of system RAM.

here is a nice card in the $100 range if you are looking to spend that much. this will let you do plenty of graphic work and last you another couple years. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-407&depa=0

 

Thanks for the input at present i have 256 MB on my mother board which i plain to bump to aleast 512 . my monitor is a mitsubishi diamond pro 710 which i plan to move up to a 20 inch lcd. And yes most but not all of my higher work is photo edit. The graphics at present look jagged and alittle washed. Thanks schmurt

 

with 512MB RAM and a recent video card, all your graphics should look amazing that card in the link also has DVI output for a nice LCD.

 

my experience is that nvidia has better picture quality ... my old 5200 scored higher than my 9800 in picture quality tests (pc pitstop + 3dmark01) ...

 

Thanks for the info pyrate and years to come i'm looking at both of those cards now and there spec's and the big one,price!!!. what about drivers, since i already have nvidia on board do i have to update drivers ? sometimes i have a flair for the obvious ha ha

 

P.S. i almost forgot to thank roguetrip Thanks!!!!

 

i prefer nVidia myself, but ATi cards 'supposedly' have better 2d something or other. if it were me, i'd grab an nVidia GeForce FX5700 (not the 5700 LE, it is MUCH worse)

in any case, you should uninstall the drivers for your old card, power off the system, put in the new card, and download the latest drivers from the nVidia website.