Hello, I am thinking about a video card upgrade for my computer. I currently have an Ati Radeon 9550 256 Mb AGP 8x and most of the games lag. I was thinking about buying the Radeon x1650 with 512 RAM AGP 8x for a price of about 120 euros. I would like to ask a few questions before making a choice: 1) 3D game performance : the 9550 ran Oblivion on low settings with 10 FPS average, Neverwinter Nights 2 with 7 FPS. What kind of boost should I expect with this card, knowing that my system is as follows: Pentium 4 3.0 GHz dual core 1024 Mb RAM 120 GB hard disk ONLY AGP 8x slot, no PCI-e 2) I find this card relatively low-priced having in mind that it has 512 RAM in it, and that there are 256 Mb cards which cost twice as much. Could anyone find an explanation for this? 3) If there is a card which offers more boost and is NOT more expensive, or a card which is LESS expensive and can offer about the same performance as this x1650, please tell me. Thank you
Well, the video card should not be rated by the amount of RAM on it. That's a marketing tactic, that works very well at suckering people in. The X1650 family is a midrange performer, and quite frankly, the 512MB won't do you any good. It's paired with a GPU that can't handle the processing demands in situations that would merit the RAM. I have the PCIe version in my second box, and it's alright. The X1650 seems to be a lower clocked version of the X1650 Pro, and isn't an official ATi GPU. If you still find that to be the most you can spend, get a GeForce 7600GS or GeForce 6600GT. They offer about the same performance, and should cost less. I'd look at a GeForce 7600GT card if you can, although I don't know what options with this graphics chip are available to you in your current price range. Outside of that, the next step up is the ATi Radeon X1950Pro or a really cheap GeForce 7800GS. I doubt they'll fall in your price range, but keep an eye out for deals and rebates. If they're at all close in price, you might seriously want to consider tossing the extra cash at it. In any case, anything listed here will be an improvement over your current card.
