been looking at new graphics cards and have been totally confuzzled. my budget is about £100 so if anyone could give me a pointer would greatly appreciate it.
@gibb0:
for this money you could easily get an nvidia 250 GTS.
the raw pwerformance of this card should be enough to play sto on high settings. if you know how to overclock stuff (be careful, as a gpu is way more sensitive than a cpu. i know what i'm talking about, i fried my last card ) you can get this card to play the game maxed out.
if you dont do overclocking at all you could invest just a little more (around 120 i think) and get a 260 gtx.
with this card you would be on the safe side and you could play the game on max. settings.
i don't dont know about ati readon cards, though, because i have to admit i've been buying only nvidias lately; hope that helps anyway.
p.s. if you are an ati fan you could just google what the readon equivalent of a 250/260 nvidia is.
been looking at new graphics cards and have been totally confuzzled. my budget is about £100 so if anyone could give me a pointer would greatly appreciate it.
PP
If it has a 300 W PSU you can add a ATI HD 4650/4670 or the new 5650/5670 that comes out next month. These cards should play STO at med/high. GTS 250 or HD 4850/5770 needs a 450 W PSU with a 6 pin PCIE cable. GTX 260 525 W with 2 6 pin PCIE cables.
Since you don't want to give out the city I can't see what PC shops are in your area. If you're near a Fry's check out there weekends ads. I am done with this one.
Since it's a MMO MAC could possibly get it in a few years and only if this game does will. It took EVE Online and City of Heroes 5 years to offer their games on OS X.
The same can be said for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This is also a Windows only game. LucasArt is consider a big Apple game supporter but they know that they must establish a MMO on Windows first. Then afterward add OS X. "That's just the order of things."
Though Warhammer Online should be working for the MAC soon. I understand it's in BETA. If it does will maybe Cryptic will work on a MAC version.:D
McCartney - You seems to think all Windows users are against apple. We're not. I was a System Administrator who supported Windows, MAC, Unix, Linux, and Novell. I am a systems builder and I am currently in technology sales.
I like building my own systems. Apple won't let people do this legally. I am not going to hack OS X. As long as Apple keeps their prices high you are going to need to wait for games to come to OS X and stop getting upset over it.
That's what I like about Linux users. They don't complain about not being able to run windows apps, instead they created Wine.
uhh kinda outdated arent you.. there are no wine updates anymore and do you know how much cpu it cost also the installing takes ages. people now use blade servers with a os called windows 2008 server..
uhh kinda outdated arent you.. there are no wine updates anymore and do you know how much cpu it cost also the installing takes ages. people now use blade servers with a os called windows 2008 server..
What? We are here trying to help people. You Apple people are just here to hurt people. Go away.
If it has a 300 W PSU you can add a ATI HD 4650/4670 or the new 5650/5670 that comes out next month. These cards should play STO at med/high. GTS 250 or HD 4850/5770 needs a 450 W PSU with a 6 pin PCIE cable. GTX 260 525 W with 2 6 pin PCIE cables.
ah thank you, you have answered my next question. Will check out prices now on a new psu now.
aaaah i have one 6 pin connector and have never known what that was for till now. Since you said that gtx 260 needs 2 6 pin connectors, would it be best buying a new psu or buying some kind of adaptor?
Currently using a 500w psu.
aaaah i have one 6 pin connector and have never known what that was for till now. Since you said that gtx 260 needs 2 6 pin connectors, would it be best buying a new psu or buying some kind of adaptor?
Currently using a 500w psu.
A adapter will work but you still need to meet the power requirements for the graphic card. On average GTX 260 cards needs a combine 12+ V of 36 to 45 AMPS. The power needs are on the card's box. An average PSU doesn't provide this. Most only give you 12+V 18 AMPS. There is a sticker on your PSU which should list this. Now adapters are cheap and sometime the cards come with them. Go head and try your power supply. If things are sluggish you may need a better PSU.
hm, correct me if im wrong but i always thought radeon cards are using standard 6-pin PCIe power connector (or 8/one 6 and one 2).
if you don't know what this is for, how have you been supplying your current video card with energy? Oo
well, thanks white knight for going into detail, i was kinda oblivious to the fact that i should have mentioned power supply for newer cards in order to fully help gibbo
just for the record, i have seen 260 amped cards with only one 6 pin connector :P
uhh kinda outdated arent you.. there are no wine updates anymore and do you know how much cpu it cost also the installing takes ages. people now use blade servers with a os called windows 2008 server..
What? We are here trying to help people. You Apple people are just here to hurt people. Go away.
White Knight, just ignore him. He posted in my fleet thread about having problems in the past with us, of which none of us ever heard about Aries Fleet. They're located in the Netherlands, so their exposure to IT and computers is going to be a little different than in other countries. I think he's just causing his own problems right now.
As for blade servers with Windows 2008, please understand that whatever you've seen used isn't what is happening in the rest of the world. For servers, BSD and Windows dominate, but plenty of other servers running a variety of other operating systems.
Please don't make posts to try to stir up flames. We don't tolerate it here. Thanks.
hm, correct me if im wrong but i always thought radeon cards are using standard 6-pin PCIe power connector (or 8/one 6 and one 2).
if you don't know what this is for, how have you been supplying your current video card with energy? Oo
well, thanks white knight for going into detail, i was kinda oblivious to the fact that i should have mentioned power supply for newer cards in order to fully help gibbo
just for the record, i have seen 260 amped cards with only one 6 pin connector :P
ATI and NVIDIA have no set-in-stone standard for what type of power connector they're going to use for each design. They have recommendations, but the individual manufacturers of each design may choose to implement their own choice for power, cooling, and layout.
Most power supplies these days should come with PCI-Express power cables that have 6+2 pin connectors. However, not all do yet. To help, most manufacturers include power connector adapters with their cards for retail boxes.
hm, correct me if im wrong but i always thought radeon cards are using standard 6-pin PCIe power connector (or 8/one 6 and one 2).
if you don't know what this is for, how have you been supplying your current video card with energy? Oo
well, thanks white knight for going into detail, i was kinda oblivious to the fact that i should have mentioned power supply for newer cards in order to fully help gibbo
just for the record, i have seen 260 amped cards with only one 6 pin connector :P
The ATI 4650/4670 and Nvidia 9600 GT generally do not use PCIE cables. Each manufacture makes their cards differently. Not all GTX 260 are the same. ATI GPU usually uses less power then Nvidia. I try to give info that will cover all the bases. it's better to have a PSU that's more powerful then you need then one that doesn't provide enough.
People generally look for lowest price. If they are asking for help here then they are not techies. They buy pre-build systems at Best Buy, Staples, Wal-mart, ect.... And usually the salespeople there don't understand the technology so they are no real help.
I work in Sales, I used to a Sys Admin. I treat them as I would any customer. I understand that they do not understand this stuff and are looking for someone who does. When you go into a store and ask for help, do you expect the salesperson to say to you "What you don't already know that, You are stupid."
A good tech support knows to ask question and try to understand what is being done.
Man, cipher_nemo it took me 20 minutes to write this response. You did it in 2.
Hey guys, I live pretty close to a frys electronics and I wanted to buy a good desktop for gaming forxmas but my budget is only 600-700 dollars. do you guys have any suggestions. I'm very new to pc gaming.
Man, cipher_nemo it took me 20 minutes to write this response. You did it in 2.
Hehehe, well around 4 minutes (time stamp between my two posts). When you don't copy and paste much, you learn to spend less time getting it up there. But my typing skills stink, lol, as I don't use formal hand placements for typing. I use about 6 of my 10 fingers to type, as my other four fingers are so used to hitting macro keys and mouse buttons for gaming.
Hey guys, I live pretty close to a frys electronics and I wanted to buy a good desktop for gaming forxmas but my budget is only 600-700 dollars. do you guys have any suggestions. I'm very new to pc gaming.
Tigard, Oregon
Good for you. The best time to buy at Fry's is on the weekend. Friday and Saturday are the big ad days.
Now ask questions. I live in Silicon Valley and the Fry's people here do not know what they are doing.
Graphics - a lot of cheap PC have integrated GPU. These are chips not cards. They use "shared memory". They're generally are not good for gaming. Now you can add a Graphic card to these systems. Look for a system with at least a 300 W PSU and 1 PCIE X16 slot. See if you can find one with a 450 W or better. HP/Compaq and Gateway seem to put more powerful PSU in their system so check them out. If the Salesperson doesn't know what PSU wattage is have them open the system. Do not buy slim-lines PCs. They are hard to upgrade. Look for a standard Mid-tower.
You can buy a $300-400.00 PC and add $100.00 Graphic Card.
Graphic Gaming cards:
Entry level cards:
ATI HD 4650 and 4670 cards only need a 300 W PSU. Most of today's cheap PC has a 300 W PSU.
Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT needs a 400 W PSU.
All three of these cards usually do not need a 6 pin PCIE cable. Always check the box for system requirements.
STO Gaming level med. Price ranges on these cards are under $100.00. The ATI's usually a better choice here on a price/performance.
Mid Level cards:
ATI HD 4850, 5750, 5770 and the Nvidia 9800 GT, 9800 GTX, GTS 250 need a 450 W PSU with one 6 pin PCIE cable. Always check the box for system requirements. STO Gaming level High/Very High. Price Range $100-200.00.
High Ends are out of your price range.
Now you can install these cards yourself and save money. It's really not that hard. If you go this route just come back here and we'll help.
Today most PC's have dual cores CPUs and a lot have quad-cores. So just make sure the processor is at least a dual-core and the speed is at least 1.8 GHz or better. Better is better. AMD vs. Intel. To make the simple, don't worry about it. Just look for AMD Athlon x2, Phenom, Phenom II or Intel Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad.
hey cipher, just google something like 10-finger typing or so. you probably gonna find some training program which teaches you proper 10 finger system.
i could tell you the name of the side i used to train with, but i don't think a german training program would be of help for you xD
anyway the 10 finger system is totally cool. it took me about 10 sec to write this part of my post
back on topic: yeah, i tend to treat people the way you described but not because i'm arrogant or expect people to know everything, i guess i'm just too much of a nerd; this stuff comes so naturally to me that i forget that there are people who don't know anything about it ;P
regarding your comment about buying stuff at bestbuy etc.: i think this is your equivalent of media markt here in germany.
as a general advice to everybody: don't buy pcs in big/general electronic markets, even if you are completely clueless.
the best way to do this is to go to a professional computer store - the best one in germany is k&m, i don't know any english ones though, maybe white or cipher could suggest some?
there you can ask about the best combo of single parts if you don't know what you are looking for exactly (clerks in a pc store usually can inform you better than clerks in a big electronics store, those guys tend to have no idea about computers whatsoever) and then you can just ask them to build those parts in to the case for you.
dunno about you but in germany every decent computer store offers a repair/assembly service.
the best part about this: stores specialized in computers are also often cheaper than general electronic stores and if you match all components with eachother, you pc will be way more powerful in raw performance than any pre-build stuff you can buy from dell etc.
Comments
PP
for this money you could easily get an nvidia 250 GTS.
the raw pwerformance of this card should be enough to play sto on high settings. if you know how to overclock stuff (be careful, as a gpu is way more sensitive than a cpu. i know what i'm talking about, i fried my last card
if you dont do overclocking at all you could invest just a little more (around 120 i think) and get a 260 gtx.
with this card you would be on the safe side and you could play the game on max. settings.
i don't dont know about ati readon cards, though, because i have to admit i've been buying only nvidias lately; hope that helps anyway.
p.s. if you are an ati fan you could just google what the readon equivalent of a 250/260 nvidia is.
ah thank you, you have answered my next question. Will check out prices now on a new psu now.
Currently using a 500w psu.
cipher_nemo does a really good job of explaining this.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=1136519#post1136519
if you don't know what this is for, how have you been supplying your current video card with energy? Oo
well, thanks white knight for going into detail, i was kinda oblivious to the fact that i should have mentioned power supply for newer cards in order to fully help gibbo
just for the record, i have seen 260 amped cards with only one 6 pin connector :P
again im in your debt sir again thanks to dextra also for puting me on he path to picking a card.
White Knight, just ignore him. He posted in my fleet thread about having problems in the past with us, of which none of us ever heard about Aries Fleet. They're located in the Netherlands, so their exposure to IT and computers is going to be a little different than in other countries. I think he's just causing his own problems right now.
Lizzio, first Wine has updates all the time. The last was December 4th for 1.1.34.
As for blade servers with Windows 2008, please understand that whatever you've seen used isn't what is happening in the rest of the world. For servers, BSD and Windows dominate, but plenty of other servers running a variety of other operating systems.
Please don't make posts to try to stir up flames. We don't tolerate it here. Thanks.
ATI and NVIDIA have no set-in-stone standard for what type of power connector they're going to use for each design. They have recommendations, but the individual manufacturers of each design may choose to implement their own choice for power, cooling, and layout.
Most power supplies these days should come with PCI-Express power cables that have 6+2 pin connectors. However, not all do yet. To help, most manufacturers include power connector adapters with their cards for retail boxes.
The ATI 4650/4670 and Nvidia 9600 GT generally do not use PCIE cables. Each manufacture makes their cards differently. Not all GTX 260 are the same. ATI GPU usually uses less power then Nvidia. I try to give info that will cover all the bases. it's better to have a PSU that's more powerful then you need then one that doesn't provide enough.
People generally look for lowest price. If they are asking for help here then they are not techies. They buy pre-build systems at Best Buy, Staples, Wal-mart, ect.... And usually the salespeople there don't understand the technology so they are no real help.
I work in Sales, I used to a Sys Admin. I treat them as I would any customer. I understand that they do not understand this stuff and are looking for someone who does. When you go into a store and ask for help, do you expect the salesperson to say to you "What you don't already know that, You are stupid."
A good tech support knows to ask question and try to understand what is being done.
Man, cipher_nemo it took me 20 minutes to write this response. You did it in 2.
Tigard, Oregon
Hehehe, well around 4 minutes (time stamp between my two posts). When you don't copy and paste much, you learn to spend less time getting it up there. But my typing skills stink, lol, as I don't use formal hand placements for typing. I use about 6 of my 10 fingers to type, as my other four fingers are so used to hitting macro keys and mouse buttons for gaming.
Now ask questions. I live in Silicon Valley and the Fry's people here do not know what they are doing.
Graphics - a lot of cheap PC have integrated GPU. These are chips not cards. They use "shared memory". They're generally are not good for gaming. Now you can add a Graphic card to these systems. Look for a system with at least a 300 W PSU and 1 PCIE X16 slot. See if you can find one with a 450 W or better. HP/Compaq and Gateway seem to put more powerful PSU in their system so check them out. If the Salesperson doesn't know what PSU wattage is have them open the system. Do not buy slim-lines PCs. They are hard to upgrade. Look for a standard Mid-tower.
You can buy a $300-400.00 PC and add $100.00 Graphic Card.
Graphic Gaming cards:
Entry level cards:
ATI HD 4650 and 4670 cards only need a 300 W PSU. Most of today's cheap PC has a 300 W PSU.
Nvidia Geforce 9600 GT needs a 400 W PSU.
All three of these cards usually do not need a 6 pin PCIE cable. Always check the box for system requirements.
STO Gaming level med. Price ranges on these cards are under $100.00. The ATI's usually a better choice here on a price/performance.
Mid Level cards:
ATI HD 4850, 5750, 5770 and the Nvidia 9800 GT, 9800 GTX, GTS 250 need a 450 W PSU with one 6 pin PCIE cable. Always check the box for system requirements. STO Gaming level High/Very High. Price Range $100-200.00.
High Ends are out of your price range.
Now you can install these cards yourself and save money. It's really not that hard. If you go this route just come back here and we'll help.
Today most PC's have dual cores CPUs and a lot have quad-cores. So just make sure the processor is at least a dual-core and the speed is at least 1.8 GHz or better. Better is better. AMD vs. Intel. To make the simple, don't worry about it. Just look for AMD Athlon x2, Phenom, Phenom II or Intel Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad.
You could read these two posts.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...&postcount=736
http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...95#post1098695
Oh, if you find a PC with an Nvidia GT 120 or GTS 130 card at your price range go for it.
This info could be use at any store. Staples have had some really good deals.
EDIT: You can even spend $50-60.00 and replace the PSU with a 500 W.
have an old clunker
- P4 2.5 Ghz
- 4 Gigs of Ram
- 8900 GT.
Chip is going to be to slow...
Yup, video card is fine. Memory is fine, but you're right, that CPU is weak. Is it an old desktop or laptop PC?
Thanks again.
i got my use out of it 5 or 6 years old. Looks like i need to buy a new one. Its due...
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-9600M-GT.9449.0.html
i could tell you the name of the side i used to train with, but i don't think a german training program would be of help for you xD
anyway the 10 finger system is totally cool. it took me about 10 sec to write this part of my post
back on topic: yeah, i tend to treat people the way you described but not because i'm arrogant or expect people to know everything, i guess i'm just too much of a nerd; this stuff comes so naturally to me that i forget that there are people who don't know anything about it ;P
regarding your comment about buying stuff at bestbuy etc.: i think this is your equivalent of media markt here in germany.
as a general advice to everybody: don't buy pcs in big/general electronic markets, even if you are completely clueless.
the best way to do this is to go to a professional computer store - the best one in germany is k&m, i don't know any english ones though, maybe white or cipher could suggest some?
there you can ask about the best combo of single parts if you don't know what you are looking for exactly (clerks in a pc store usually can inform you better than clerks in a big electronics store, those guys tend to have no idea about computers whatsoever) and then you can just ask them to build those parts in to the case for you.
dunno about you but in germany every decent computer store offers a repair/assembly service.
the best part about this: stores specialized in computers are also often cheaper than general electronic stores and if you match all components with eachother, you pc will be way more powerful in raw performance than any pre-build stuff you can buy from dell etc.