Best Graphics Card?

[Dve313]

Hi, I brought a Nvidia xfx 8800 GT 1GB. However, unfortunately that card is too powerful for my pc and I can not get the maximum performance out of it.

I am wanting a decent graphics card which my pc has the power to run so I can get the maximum power out of the card. I am wanting to play mainly Counter Strike; Source, World of Warcraft and I am wanting to buy Battlefield Bad Company 2. Even if its on low graphics for BFBC2 thats fine.

Here are my specification of my pc:

HP Pavilion Media Center A1629.uk

ATI RS400 Mother Board
Intel Pentium D 820 2.80Ghz x2
2GB of RAM DDR2
ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Shared Video Memory (UMA)

I HAVE changed PSU I have a Blue Storm PRO 500W

Here is a link with all the details and specifications for my PC

HP Pavilion Media Center a1629.uk Desktop PC Product Specifications HP Pavilion Media Center a1629.uk Desktop PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

My budget is around $200 however I would prefer to spend around $100-$150

Thanks for your help.

 

[foothead]

wait, so you are saying your PC is being a bottleneck for your card, so you want a better card? If that was the case, no matter what, it'll perform the same or worse.

I see no bottleneck though. Stick with the 8800 and don't waste your money.

 

[Dve313]

No, I am wanting a card less powerful as it seems my pc can not run the 8800GT. I am getting zigzags everywhere and sometimes when it does work... I can play CSS with around 70fps and then everything freezes. Im sure I should have way more fps than 70 :/ ?

 

[foothead]

What is CPU usage in game?

I see nothing that would suggest a bottleneck.

actually sounds about right. The 8800 is very old card.

 

[Dve313]

I know that CSS does use a lot of CPU.

When I saw different coloured lines across the screen and the pc kept on freezing I just thought my PC was not powerful enough for the card.

You think the card might be damaged? or the driver i installed was not the correct one? as I am sure I installed the latest drivers for the 8800GT

 

[foothead]

I would roll back one driver. NV has released a lot of corrupted/malfunctioning drivers lately. The new one caused one of my PC's to BSOD endlessly at boot.

 

[Dve313]

Ok. Thanks. I will give that a try. also my 8800GT is not the basic card.

I have the limited edition

Nvidia GeForce XFX Alpha Dog 8800GT 1GB Edition.

 

[foothead]

That means its clocks are a little bit higher.

Same drivers will work.

be sure to run driver sweeper to get rid of all your old drivers.

 

[Dve313]

Ok thanks Il give that a try.

At the moment I have integrated graphics. I remember someone telling me never to remove the drivers of my integrated graphics card because they link with the chipset or something like that? they told me just to plug in the pci-e card and normally the integrated card should automatically disable.

 

[foothead]

That person failed. You need a chipset driver. Having ATI and NV video drivers is just an unimaginable pita.