brsingr Posted August 1, 2007 Report Share Posted August 1, 2007 where can I get barebones computers/ individual computer parts for cheap, and from those who do graphical gaming, too, what is a good graphics card? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman Posted August 1, 2007 Report Share Posted August 1, 2007 where can I get barebones computers/ individual computer parts for cheap' date=' and from those who do graphical gaming, too, what is a good graphics card?[/quote'] Newegg has pretty good prices, and their customer support is supposedly very good but I've never needed it. No idea on the graphics card, unfortunately, I'm years behind there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chayesh Posted August 1, 2007 Report Share Posted August 1, 2007 I always preferred NVidia chipsets to ATI. Most will agree that at comparable prices, ATI cards do more than NVidia cards, however, the NVidia graphics renderings and processing (as well as how well put together the cards are) has always given the edge to them in my mind. You can get a strong NVidia chipset video card with 256MB DDR 8xAGP with 4 pixel pipelines and 350mhz GPU for under $50. And small's right, www.newegg.com rules. Their service is bar none the best and their prices are more than reasonable. www.tigerdirect.com is also pretty good and reliable. Steer clear of www.gearxs.com. Their prices are lower, but their service is horrid. They screwed up my order twice (after sending me a DOA power supply) and then sent me some other guy's order of a motherboard and CPU. If you are doing hardcore gaming, you want minimum 256MB of graphic memory, probably more like 512. You also want to make sure that it supports DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL 1.5 minimum. If you go for a 512MB card, be prepared to pay near $100 for it, unless you can go PCI-Express rather than AGP. For some reason, they seem to be a little cheaper as it's newer technology. For comparison, however, I play Neverwinter Nights in 1024x768 resolution on high graphics and never miss a beat. I also play 9dragons, 2Moons, Kartrider, and Guild Wars online from time to time and haven't had a problem with my 128MB card. In the next month, I'm upgrading myself to 256MB so I just happen to have been researching graphics cards over the last month or so. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crackwilly21 Posted August 1, 2007 Report Share Posted August 1, 2007 NVIDIA is the way to go. I have onboard NVIDIA 256MB and its pretty sweet. It only plays oblivion on LOW, but for onboard thats good. I'd recommned any NVIDIA compatible with DirectX 9.0 or even 10 (if your running vista). And yes...newegg.com is the pwnzor. If you aren't having luck there, or tigerdirect, try pricewatch.com. SOMETIMES they've got better deals than the others, but its a rare occurance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brsingr Posted August 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 ATI's cards, at least all of those that have "radeon" in the name, have a lot of compatability issues with online games, like EQ2. I was more hoping for specific cards, I wanna run oblivion at very high w/ no lag. there are some good, high-end ATI cards on ebay for like 100, so I'll probably buy a $250 barebones system and replace video and sound cards EDIT: Integrated Intel® Extreme Graphics 2 - anyone know how well this works? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crackwilly21 Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 never heard of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallman Posted August 2, 2007 Report Share Posted August 2, 2007 Just gonna throw another chip in nVidia's pile. I had an ATI card, once, it kinda sucked. My current card (FX 5700 circa 2003Q2) runs Oblivion well enough. Plus it's AGP and not extremely hot or loud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chayesh Posted August 3, 2007 Report Share Posted August 3, 2007 I currently run a GeForce FX 5600 GT 128MB 4x AGP card. I'm upgrading to an 8x 256MB card. ATI chipsets have tons of compatibility issues many times. Skip the ATI cards and go NVidia. There are TONS of manufacturers so you really have your pick. And like I said, a 256MB is around $50 or less. 512MB around $100 from newegg. Another pretty good site is www.geeks.com. Oh...and you asked about Intel's integrated graphics. If you aren't already aware, integrated graphics are a part of your motherboard chipset. They usually don't have more than 64MB of graphics memory if that. This means your system will eventually bog down from your high-end graphics games sucking your RAM dry while you play. Higher MB graphics cards prevent this. Also, integrated graphics don't have the sheer power of a separate GPU, they don't render 3D well at all usually, and probably don't support Direct X or OpenGL enough to even play the game. That's what made me go out and get a graphics card to begin with. SWKOTOR was OpenGL1.5 which my ProSavage integrated graphics chipset didn't support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brsingr Posted August 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2007 this one is like 96 mb, but i am thinking of this - http://cgi.ebay.com/INTEL-PENTIUM-4-3-4GHZ-BAREBONE-PC-HYPER-THREADING-HT_W0QQitemZ260144557621QQihZ016QQcategoryZ140075QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I plan to add graphics and sound cards, and 500 gig hard drive, as well as some more RAM. I was just watching a video about building a comp, and realized i have never grounded myself b4 working on a comp..... I would prefer if it could have more than 2gb ram, but that's all it holds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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