Tom Adams Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 It's been a while since I've looked at graphics cards for PC's so I was a bit surprised at the offerings out there when I started looking the other day. I bought a new 22" monitor with excellent resolution and after hooking it up it became apparent that the motherboard integrated graphics processor ain't cutting it. I'm not into gaming and the PC is never used for DVD movies & such. I just need a solid, reliable graphics card. Any recommendations?? TIA Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.reed21 Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 I would recomend a low end Ge Force graphic card, they are not real expensive and easy to install, and they will last forever so long as you clean the dust out of the internal fan once in a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace168516 Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 There are also several offerings that are fanless...just a big heatsink, quiet and no dust to clean. There are several based on the nVidia 9400 chipset that work well, do not need any additional power connectors either. Just need to figure out if you have AGP or PCI-E slot. Once that, just keep an eye on the sales at Newegg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Adams Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 Thanks guys. I've had some experience in the past with GeForce/nVidia cards in machines I built and was leaning in that direction. However, I wanted to keep an open mind. BTW - man-oh-man have graphics cards changed. I was floored at some of the higher-end cards. I'm not sure some of them would fit in my case!! Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 the question really is how big your case is...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 And it also should be Bluray compatible if your into that. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 what makes a graphics card blu ray compatible? first I ever heard of a gpu being blu ray compatible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddvj Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 what makes a graphics card blu ray compatible? first I ever heard of a gpu being blu ray compatible.Whether or not it supports hardware acceleration is one thing, so your processor isn't doing all the work. A good graphics card that can do hardware decoding is a night and day difference. Playback is a lot smoother, and less taxing to your system. Keeps overall temps down as well. Also, being HDCP compliant is a huge plus, if your monitor is also HDCP compliant. If it isn't, you have to run extra (expensive) software in the background just to get Blu-Rays to play. I have an ATI Radeon HD3870 in both my main computers. You can find them online for ~65 now. Unfortunately, they were a bit more expensive when I first bought them. As Jay mentioned earlier, size is definitely a consideration, as these cards are very large. I had to make some modifications (a real hack job, to be honest--I actually had to resort to using scissors) to my motherboard on one of my computers to get the card to fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 I have nvidia 8800 gts 512 versions v92 (2 none sli version running at constant 100% due to running folding at home off them) They are 9.5 inches long and barely fit in the case, If I had a better case it would have been GTX 295 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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