Graphics cards in cheap PCs

[junk1]

My Dad wants a budget price PC (<£600). I am able to help him out with
most of the basic hardware requirements - ie RAM, CPU Hard disk etc,
but one of his requirements is that he may occasionally use it for
games and sometimes for simple video editing (MSMM)

When he went to PC World the one I had picked out the salesman said
wasnt suitable for games other than Windows Solitaire as they 'dont
have graphics cards' and that he would have to spend at least £800 to
get a PC that will run games.

....I just wondered what he meant by 'doesnt have a graphic card'?

I would have thought all PCs have grahics cards? I accept that a budget
card might not be suitable for the latest games, but my dad will
probably only want to run my hand-me-down games that are 4 or 5 years
old.

So I was wondering how advanced the most basic graphics cards were? Ie
is todays budget entry level PC able to run games that are a few years
old?

How do I know if one graphics card is better than another? ie with
memory etc its the megabytes etc, but graphics cards dont seem to have
a simple number for comparison?


Any help greatly appreciated.

David Bevan
http://www.davidbevan.co.uk

 

[Arno Wagner]

My Dad wants a budget price PC (<£600). I am able to help him out with
most of the basic hardware requirements - ie RAM, CPU Hard disk etc,
but one of his requirements is that he may occasionally use it for
games and sometimes for simple video editing (MSMM)

When he went to PC World the one I had picked out the salesman said
wasnt suitable for games other than Windows Solitaire as they 'dont
have graphics cards' and that he would have to spend at least £800 to
get a PC that will run games.

...I just wondered what he meant by 'doesnt have a graphic card'?

This is BS and a strong hint towards incompetence. The "garphic card"
may not be a card, but it is allways present, occasionally integrated
into the mainboard and using the main memory.

I would have thought all PCs have grahics cards? I accept that a budget
card might not be suitable for the latest games, but my dad will
probably only want to run my hand-me-down games that are 4 or 5 years
old.

Then try the 600 GBP option. If it proves too slow (unlikely with
your requirements), you can still add a cheap current card, like
a Radeon 9600SE or Radeon 9250 for <40 GBP.

So I was wondering how advanced the most basic graphics cards were? Ie
is todays budget entry level PC able to run games that are a few years
old?

I recently had trouble with my Radeon 9600XT and switched temporarily
to an old Radeon 9200, which was still fast enough to play World of
Warcraft in 1024x768 smoothly, although with problems underwater
(features missing).

How do I know if one graphics card is better than another? ie with
memory etc its the megabytes etc, but graphics cards dont seem to have
a simple number for comparison?

They don't. One important thing today is DirectX 9.0 compatibility,
leading to my old Radeon 9200 not giving me underwater visibility in
WoW. Still, for Games several years old, allmost anything you can buy
new should be enough.

Here is a nice article about the subject:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050302/index.html

Arno

 

[J. Clarke]

My Dad wants a budget price PC (<£600). I am able to help him out with
most of the basic hardware requirements - ie RAM, CPU Hard disk etc,
but one of his requirements is that he may occasionally use it for
games and sometimes for simple video editing (MSMM)

When he went to PC World the one I had picked out the salesman said
wasnt suitable for games other than Windows Solitaire as they 'dont
have graphics cards' and that he would have to spend at least £800 to
get a PC that will run games.

...I just wondered what he meant by 'doesnt have a graphic card'?

I would have thought all PCs have grahics cards? I accept that a budget
card might not be suitable for the latest games, but my dad will
probably only want to run my hand-me-down games that are 4 or 5 years
old.

So I was wondering how advanced the most basic graphics cards were? Ie
is todays budget entry level PC able to run games that are a few years
old?

How do I know if one graphics card is better than another? ie with
memory etc its the megabytes etc, but graphics cards dont seem to have
a simple number for comparison?

Most entry level machines have "integrated" video, which means that the
video is implemented as part of the chipset on the motherboard. This can
range in performance from so-so to really dismal. For running most office
applications it's fine, but it's at best marginal for any games requiring
video acceleration, which is most of them. Some such machines don't even
have AGP (or PCI Express, although you aren't likely to find that on an
entry-level machine yet) slots--if you have one of those you have no
upgrade path. If he's doing video editing, getting TV-OUT out of
integrated video can be problematical--if there's no TV-out connector on
the motherboard then you're going to end up paying the price of a halfway
decent video board to add one, so may as well start with halfway decent
video.

As to a decent board, there's no way to tell if you don't know the
numbers--an ATI board with either "VIVO" or "All-In-Wonder" in the name and
a number 8500 or 9500 or between 9600 and 9800 inclusive or that starts
with X and has three digits in the numerical part should be fine-with
nvidia it's any board with either VIVO or "Personal Cinema" in the name and
a number Ti4x00 with any digit in place of the x or with a number higher
than 5200, not inclusive. That will get you a board that can input and
output standard TV signals and that was the high end of the range two
generations back or midrange or higher in the previous generation or that
is in the current generation, and any such board will have adequate
performance for games several years old. Find out what type of video board
the machine takes--if there is a video slot it will be either AGP or the
newer PCI-Express standard (very, very few machines have both) so you'll
need a video board with the same type of connector.

 

[marks542004]

The nicest interpretation of the sales guys comment was that there was
no seperate graphics card. He should though have explained integrated
graphics on the motherboard.

The older games you have should specify requirements on the box. In the
US a graphics card for around $50 would probably run most games 4 to 5
years old.

I do not know the UK market but I bought in the US a emachines system
for around $600 with nvidia geforce 4 integrated graphics.

You may want to add more memory to allow a bigger memory allotment to
the onboard graphics.

or consider shopping for a used system.

 

[DaveW]

"Cheap" computers come with what is known as onboard video, which means that
the motherboard used in that system has a video chip installed on it,
instead of using a separate video card. That solution to cheap video is
fine for word processing, etc., but the onboard video chip is VERY slow, AND
uses the computer's RAM for video RAM, thus slowing the whole system down
further. Thus, modern games are not playable. And to make matters worse,
these motherboards, to further save money, do not even contain an AGP video
card slot, so you CANNOT add a video card in the future to speed things up.
The way around this problem is to make SURE that the computer you are buying
has a separate video card installed when you buy it, even if it's a cheap
video card. You can always upgrade it to a faster one later.

--
DaveW



My Dad wants a budget price PC (<£600). I am able to help him out with
most of the basic hardware requirements - ie RAM, CPU Hard disk etc,
but one of his requirements is that he may occasionally use it for
games and sometimes for simple video editing (MSMM)

When he went to PC World the one I had picked out the salesman said
wasnt suitable for games other than Windows Solitaire as they 'dont
have graphics cards' and that he would have to spend at least £800 to
get a PC that will run games.

....I just wondered what he meant by 'doesnt have a graphic card'?

I would have thought all PCs have grahics cards? I accept that a budget
card might not be suitable for the latest games, but my dad will
probably only want to run my hand-me-down games that are 4 or 5 years
old.

So I was wondering how advanced the most basic graphics cards were? Ie
is todays budget entry level PC able to run games that are a few years
old?

How do I know if one graphics card is better than another? ie with
memory etc its the megabytes etc, but graphics cards dont seem to have
a simple number for comparison?


Any help greatly appreciated.

David Bevan
http://www.davidbevan.co.uk