Hi, My son had a new computer for xmas. EI system 214 (PC World). It has a D 356 Processor, 512mb ram and integrated graphics. We want to upgrade the graphics but do not know which type will fit the motherboard or which type to buy. Can anybody please help.
There are predominately two types of graphics card nowadays... AGP and PCIe. From the description PC world give on their website of your PC I cant tell which you will have to buy. Try installing this free program... http://www.cpuid.org/download/pcw2006_v1713.exe It tells you all the details of your system including the motherboard in your computer. Here is the homepage of the people that made the program. CPUID Once you have installed and opened the program there will be 12 icons on the left hand side. Click on the one in the middle of the top row (mainboard) then on the right should be a list of items with a description. What does it say next to Manufacturer and Mainboard? Also what sort of games will your son be playing? Do you have a budget? Graphics cards range from £30 to £400+. You can get away with using cheaper graphics cards but it will involve playing with the settings in each game to get a good performance/visual quality balance, whereas more expensive cards you can just install the games and play... or at least for a year or so until games become more demanding.
no, you need to check if their is an AGP slot on the motherboard, if you can remove the lid and look for a brown slot, your motherboard may not have one, or provide us with the make & model of the motherboard
Have you bought the card or do you need help choosing one still? Fitting AGP cards is dead easy. Simply remove the power cable from the back of the case. Earth yourself (you can get bracelets which you attach to your wrist and then connect to something which is earthed, though I just take off my slippers and touch a radiator every now and then) then simply push the card into place. Make sure you use a screw to steady the card against the case. Turn the pc on, immediately go into BIOS (usually by pressing del after pressing the power button, though its sometimes F1 or F8) Somewhere amongst the settings will be one to disable onboard graphics and one also to state whether you are using an AGP card or a PCI card. Boot into windows and install the drivers. Windows will want to install the drivers itself but id personally cancel that and use the wizard which will automatically pop up when you put the cd rom that came with your card in the rom drive. This way the tools which came with the card will also be installed.
Hi, Checked motherboard, there is an apg slot. Could you recommend any decent graphics cards up to £50, or do I need to go higher.
AGP what ? 1X 2X 2/4X 4X 8X [ot]it's more likley to be an AGP 4X or 8X[/ot] BTW: use PCWizard to find out Edit: or look at your mobo manual or tell us the make & model
It wont really matter will it? I thought DX10 is only for Vista. Or do you mean because dx9 prices will drop?
yeah, i don't think DX10 has much more than a few extra bells & whistles, comparing it to DX9c[ot]but i'm not a big fan of Vista (or any MS OS)[/ot]BTW: correct me if i'm wrong Edit: well you will know zeus if anyone does, cos you know a sh1t load more than me about Win & stuff
