Love playing Call of Duty! now I need a better graphics card

[Fergy]

Hey,
I bought a Dell 2400 desktop PC. 2.66ghz (if I remember correctly), 80gb harddrive, 512ram, etc. Nothing special, just something I could play games on and wouldn't have to spend a lot of money for (relatively speaking).

Well, for a while I thought my computer was doing fine, until I played Call of Duty on my brother's PC which has a G-force graphics card (not sure which one ,but he said I could buy it for about $180-200 now, if that helps).

So what card should I get? I'm thinking of getting the same one he has. I don't want to spend a bundle, I guess $300 max. Thanks for your help!

 

[deepthroat]

IMO, ATI is the leader in video cards, for $200 you can get a ATI Radeon 9600 XT plus tax $16, online it's cheaper(but when I want something, I want it now!)

That card will enable you to crank up the settings, believe me!
My Radeon 9600 XT is over clocked to

CORE:585 MHz
MEMORY clock:335 MHZ

Great scores in 3D Mark 2004, when overclocked, it kicks the 9800 pro in every category except photoshop.

 

[loaf]

for 300 bucks you should be able to get a very nice card. i did. i just got a geforce fx5900xt for 300 canadian. and you can overclock the snot out of it if you so please. i for one am happy with it's stock speeds.. for now anyway. if you want to take deepthroat's advice, for a little extra you can get an ati 9800pro, which is also an amazing card. my suggestion is to look around for the best bang for your buck. also ask your brother which card it is he has and if he'd suggest it to you.

 

[RAFDOG]

My gforce fx 128mb 5200 runs it perfectly try that the radeon are more expensive so try a gforce

 

[Fergy]

who would you buy one from? online, a store? I know of tigerdirect.com and some others. Also, Circuit City of course, but they're probably a lot higher!

Any links?

 

[evanstueve]

tigerdirect, newegg, and pricewatch are all very good computer websites to shop.

 

[loaf]

i would avise against the 5200. i know 3 or 4 people who have it and arent happy with it's performance. perhaps it does play call of duty fine, but when you want to try a different/newer game, i'd get something a little better. if your max price is 300, you can do much better than a 5200. ie an msi 5900xt. here is a review on it if you'd like to look into it some more. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1543#

 

[Fergy]

hey,
I asked my brother, and that's the same thing he has, the MSI gforce 5900xt

 

[loaf]

yes, if you go with it, i doubt you would regret it. i got it recently, and it is very sweet. a couple of nicer things about it are the noise level is very low and it runs about 8 degrees cooler than other cards. so it leaves room to overclock if you want to. so overall i would recomend it. but talk to your brother and ask him how he likes it.

 

[Fergy]

he likes it a lot, and is very happy w/ it I also read some reviews, all of which were 5 out of 5 on www.newegg.com