Hello all, i need to upgrade my video card but im not exactly sure on what to get, since im not all that great with computers. I want something good thats not an outragious price. I have a Hp Pavilion 7955 with a Intel Pentium 4, 1500 MHz and a Intel Brookdale i845 Motherboard Chipset. I just need something compatable with some of the newer games, thanks.

What would you like to play? Because video performance is not only dependant on the graphic card you have, it is also dependant on the CPU you have. Okay, please don't be offended, but newer games will likely not run very well given the processor you are using. Also, you have to consider that if you have a motherboard that old, it likely only has an AGP slot, not a PCI-express x16 slot. To get good performance on today's games, you will almost definitely need a PCI-E graphics card, and a faster processor.

However, newer video card chipsets are being installed on AGP cards. I think both Nvidia and ATI have an AGP card based on their higher-level chipset. ATI's is the x1950 chipset, and Nvidia is the 7950 chipset. However, these two cards are very expensive for an AGP card, and might not be worth it given the CPU you're running, and will NOT run nearly as fast as their PCI-Express analogues.

Again, I don't mean to insult your computer, but it might be more economical to invest in a newer machine if you want to play newer games at more than 5 frames per second.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (@2.6 GHz)
2x1GB OCZ Spec. Ops. PC3200
ASRock Dual939-SATA2
Antec TruePower 550 watt PSU
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
300 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
120 GB Maxtor ATA/133 7200 rpm
ATI Radeon x1950 Pro

I want to play this game called "Empire Earth" and the system requirements are Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, NVIDIA GeForce3 of equivalent DirectX 9.0c 64MB 3D video card with hardware T&L and pixel shader support,1.5 GHz Intel P4 processor, 256MB RAM 3.0GB hard disk space. I have all of this except the GeForce3 or equivalent part

Well, that is the minimum system requirements for Empire Earth II. The thing is that it will basically play on your computer if you buy a 64 MB video card that supports directX 9.0c. However, gameplay will not be smooth or look nice.

So what I would recommend, if you don't plan on upgrading your computer anytime soon, is to buy an ATI Radeon 9550 (has 256 MB onboard RAM and has a good chipset). I'm not sure of your location, but in the US, they sell them at Wal Mart. They're about $95, and are a good deal for what they do, but newer cards don't really cost that much more. But that card should work just fine for what you want to do. But you might be disappointed if gameplay isn't good. Hope it works out.

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AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (@2.6 GHz)
2x1GB OCZ Spec. Ops. PC3200
ASRock Dual939-SATA2
Antec TruePower 550 watt PSU
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
300 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200 rpm
120 GB Maxtor ATA/133 7200 rpm
ATI Radeon x1950 Pro

Thanks, ill check one of these out tomorrow
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This user added the following:
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i think anything will be better than what i have now, a NIVIDA TNT2 M64