Techie Question 3 - VGA's

[anarres]

Hmm, been done before but not for my budget.

What is a good video card for around £100/£150?

At the moment I have a 32Mb GForce3 Ti200, but I am having serious problems that look like it is overheating. The only other thing it can be is the motherboard AGP slot, so I'm hoping it's not that. [hmm]

[Lt. Killer M]

can u come online for a sec on MS please?????

[digger760]

If i were to buy a Desktop Graphics card i would go for a Sapphire ATI solution, and probably 9600 type vintage. I think sapphire make cards which have a passive cooling solution (i heard they did at least one) ie no annoying find, mind you the heatsink is quite large and apparently takes up the space of the adjacent PCI slot.

You should get one that supports DX9 graphics. I recommend

www.overclockers.co.uk

for good value (and good support so I'm told, but i've never bought something from them myself)

[anarres]

Hmm, no fan is very nice - I have always been in favour of passive methods (my CPU has no fan on it, just an amazing HS).

GForce is no longer the way to go you think?

[digger760]

I dont no for sure but i think there is not much between nvidia and ati. So imo the next thing to consider is silence. I hav'nt followed the PC graphics card war as closly as the laptop gpu war so i am a bit in the grey with the latest stuff. But for you budget you are looking at slightly dated stuff to the best of my knowledge sapphire are the only people who make cards without fans. Mayeb there is some more detail in this thread:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=6872&start=0&sid=c570fa1841255c323b09fbb6855d66d8

However, you must be warned that the newer graphics cards have there own power connectors, and in turn you may need a new power supply to feed it.

Also worth note is that the increased heat output from a new graphics card could mean that you CPU will no longer run without a fan (as a results of higher in-case tempertures). So in turn you might need to add a case fan to remove the hot air from the case.

[munzy]

For 150 pounds I believe you could find a Raedon 9800 128MB. Try looking for that over the 9600.

[smalltalk]

If you are not into 3D-gaming, you might consider Matrox cards. IMO they build the best 2D/business cards available.