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Albromor · 10-16-2002, 01:36 AM

Here is the situation. I had a "friend" a few years ago put together a Pentium 3 system for me. Came to find out that though he put a motherboard in that would handle a P3, it could only do so with an adapter. Basically it was like having an 8 cylindar engine that only ran on 5 cylindars. Those adapters are cheaply designed and the MB was nothing to write home about. Anyway, I put in a brand new Asus motherboard which has a high rating, et.al, this past Monday. The only thing now is that I am wondering if I should get a new video card. You see at the time of my original system I put in a Diamond Viper 770 (non-ultra) 32 megs of video memory, 2x/4x card. It has worked well for me, but 64 megs of video RAM is now the minimum specs. I plan on giving my P3 rig to my wife (who is a teacher) and my children (who are in school) and get myself a P4 system. I am the PC gamer in the family, so I am the only one that needs a mid to high end machine.

So, what would you recommend in a good, reliable video card? The mother board can handle a AGP 4X card. It has 256 megs of RAM (I'm going to put another 128 real soon). I will not put in an GForce 4 cards with MX in their title. Would you consider a good GForce 3 or a low end GForce 4? Or something else? Please tell me the reason for your selection. Keep in mind, I am getting the P3 configured correctly and I want my family to have a good system, yet they don't need a gamers dream system, if you get my drift! Thanks ahead of time.

[ 10-16-2002, 01:37 AM: Message edited by: Albromor ]

10-16-2002, 01:36 AM	#1
Albromor Mephistopheles Join Date: June 13, 2001 Location: Northfield, NJ USA Posts: 1,417	Here is the situation. I had a "friend" a few years ago put together a Pentium 3 system for me. Came to find out that though he put a motherboard in that would handle a P3, it could only do so with an adapter. Basically it was like having an 8 cylindar engine that only ran on 5 cylindars. Those adapters are cheaply designed and the MB was nothing to write home about. Anyway, I put in a brand new Asus motherboard which has a high rating, et.al, this past Monday. The only thing now is that I am wondering if I should get a new video card. You see at the time of my original system I put in a Diamond Viper 770 (non-ultra) 32 megs of video memory, 2x/4x card. It has worked well for me, but 64 megs of video RAM is now the minimum specs. I plan on giving my P3 rig to my wife (who is a teacher) and my children (who are in school) and get myself a P4 system. I am the PC gamer in the family, so I am the only one that needs a mid to high end machine. So, what would you recommend in a good, reliable video card? The mother board can handle a AGP 4X card. It has 256 megs of RAM (I'm going to put another 128 real soon). I will not put in an GForce 4 cards with MX in their title. Would you consider a good GForce 3 or a low end GForce 4? Or something else? Please tell me the reason for your selection. Keep in mind, I am getting the P3 configured correctly and I want my family to have a good system, yet they don't need a gamers dream system, if you get my drift! Thanks ahead of time. [ 10-16-2002, 01:37 AM: Message edited by: Albromor ]