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Video Card for new pc

By: rekha singh | 10 Mar 2010 4:12 pm

Hi all,
I am in the process of deciding on what new desktop computer to purchase. As I am looking at the Dell XPS 8100,Win 7 Ultimate. I have a question about the video cards available for it.

Three are available:listed in order of lowest priced to highest priced.
1 ATI Radeon HD 5450 1GB DDR3

2 nVidia Geforce GTs240 1024MB GDDR3

3 ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5

I am by no means anywhere near a computer geek, so please explain in as simple langueage as you can.

What would be my best choice? I suffer with a disabling health condition which limits my ability to drive around and look at all different brands. I had several Dells in the past and was happy with them. I want something that will be usable for a while and don't need one for extreme gaming. I know this is a lot to ask of others who don't know my specific usage, but I don't want a real low end pc.

I know some video cards are integrated and some are not, don't know if one if preferable over the other function-wise.

Any and all suggestions would be so greatly appreciated. Things have changed so much since I bought my lsst pc that it becomes overwhelming for someone like me.

Thanks again for any help.

Comments

Hi,

Not sure about the other parts, but for about 8 years, on 5 different new setups, I've always gone for non-integrated video cards - my reasoning for that, was that if the video card went wrong, as they can often do, you buy another one, whereas, if the video card is integrated, it isn't so simple!

Hope this brief bit helps.

By: rekha singh | 10 Mar 2010

Most integrated motherboards if not all have slots for Video cards as well, so its not a problem to add one.

Just check before purchase. 

By: rekha singh | 10 Mar 2010

Theoretically, disabling the motherboard video will improve system performance because the CPU does not have to share main memory with the video system. At one time this was called UMB (Unified memory Buss). Today, memories are bigger and faster so while probably still true, it's a small compromise. (I should do the math, shouldn't I?) I think today the advantage to a video card is the GPU, which can do a lot of work for the CPU, again a performance advantage. For most people, system performance is limited by network speed, disk IO speed, video render speed, and CPU performance, usually in that order, depending on what you are doing.
As far as reliability is concerned, a video card uses an edge connector and more power supply energy (heat), so it is a real liability.

Cheers,
 

By: rekha singh | 13 Mar 2010

Hi,

My computer has a 300w power supply. Not good enough for many top video cards I guess, reading around it seems they now need 450w! 
I don't game or do video editing, so the nVidea on-board graphics are fine for now. I'm not worried too much about other resources, I have 8gB of memory and a quad-core cpu. My video is beautiful, so it's all good,:)

By: rekha singh | 13 Mar 2010

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