Video card opinion

[BChat]

A friend of mine is ordering a new Dell w/ Windows XP Media Center and a 20"
Ultrasharp Widescreen Digital Flat Panel monitor. Is it worth the $100.00
upgrade to go from:

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3000 video card
to
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro video card?

TIA
BChat

 

[John John]

It all depends on what your friend intends to do with the computer but
generally speaking money spent on a good video card is money well spent!
If your friend is going to do serious gaming, video editing or to take
advantage of new features in Windows Vista a good video card is a must!
I would even go one step further in my advise, if he can spend a bit
more and get an even better card then now is the time to do so. Even
though onboard video has improved greatly in the last few years it is no
match for a good video card. As far as I know Intel® Graphics Media
Accelerator 3000 is not a video card, it is on board video.

John

 

[BChat]

John,

I think you are right about the Graphics Media accelerator - not a card.
Thanks for reply
BChat


It all depends on what your friend intends to do with the computer but
generally speaking money spent on a good video card is money well spent!
If your friend is going to do serious gaming, video editing or to take
advantage of new features in Windows Vista a good video card is a must!
I would even go one step further in my advise, if he can spend a bit
more and get an even better card then now is the time to do so. Even
though onboard video has improved greatly in the last few years it is no
match for a good video card. As far as I know Intel® Graphics Media
Accelerator 3000 is not a video card, it is on board video.

John

 

[JS]

The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3000 is built-ion the motherboard and
as such will 'Share' (steals up to 256 MB) memory for video use from your
main memory available to the CPU. So a 1.0 GB system will in fact only have
768 MB available for Windows and applications. The ATI card has it's own
memory which is separate from the system memory and will also out perform
the Intel graphics, especially for photo image processing and games. For
Office applications, Web, Email ... either will do just fine.

JS