Hey guys, I'm currently looking into buying a new computer for myself, and I have narrowed it down to a few different ones, but I had a question about the video cards in a couple of them.

Just so you know, I am about to graduate from high school, and will be getting a job in about a month or two, so at this point, I don't have huge amounts of cash lying around or anything, but that's okay.

So, like every teenage guy, I play video games (lol). I need a video card that will be able to manage graphics-intense games, and because of this, the computers that I am looking at buying all have 1GB of ram. But, I don't quite know what I should do about a video card. Two of the computers have ATI video cards (Radeon Xpress 200, and X600) and I was wondering if these cards are high enough quality to play graphics intense games on?

If they aren't, it wouldn't be the end of the world if I went ahead and bought a better card (like the X1800 or something), but like I said earlier, cash is an issue.

So once again, I was wondering if the cards already installed in these computers would be good enough, or if I'd need to buy a better card?

(BTW: Two of the games I play are Age of Empires 3, and Planetside, which are both pretty intense)

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Originally Posted by TrentonD

Two of the computers have ATI video cards (Radeon Xpress 200, and X600)

I assume you are talking about getting a laptop for these cards are mobile video cards. If this is case then I recommend getting a laptop that has a dedicated video of at least 128MB or 256MB. Dedicated anything is the way to go and I learned something last month.

My friend has an Alienware laptop and it has 256MB dedicated video on it. It's a 15.4" WXGA laptop but having a dedicated video card will enable it to have 1680 x 1050 resolution which is really good if you don't mind sizes that small.

So as long as its 64MB or higher dedicated, the X600 is what you will want for a laptop that will play some good 3D games.

Wow, that's kind of odd. I have been looking at desktop's.

Desktops eh? Well in that case, you should look at NVIDIA 6600+ series. Again with the 128 or better yet get the 256MB Memory size. I don't think you need to concern yourself with the 512 or even the 1GB sizes.

Key features to look for are: 128MB or 256MB memory size, GDDR3, PCI or PCI-e, =>12 Pixel Pipelines, and make sure your motherboard can support it. I'm more familiar with NVIDIA cards than I am with ATI cards. I like both its just I have had good experience with NIVIDIA. Brand names shouldn't really matter, just as long it has those key features for your computer.

Okay that's cool. Now I know only certain kind's of video cards work with certain motherboards, but should every computer allow you to add some kind of video card, or do only some computers have room for another slot (or whatever it is)

Thanks for the help, btw

In all likelyhood, a new desktop PC will always have place for a videocard. And as mentionned above, I would look into the 6600 series; they are quite affordable right now (100-120 for a 6600 with 512mb)