Help choosing a card

[geordiekid]

Hello,

Just building my first machine, and am having a bit of bother looking for a graphics card. Basically, I think I'm ok putting the rest of the machine together, but I have no clue when it comes to graphics cards - and I wondered if any of you could give me some advice on what would be suitable. I've done a few searches and although I now know the ati/nvidia split and that not all cards do all things... this is my problem - it's left me with too much choice!

So - here's my requirements - if you could advise, I'd be grateful...

- will be going with a P4 3.2 processor, and 1G RAM

- will be using it for mainly desktop stuff, but occasionally games

- however, want to start recording TV on my hard drive and watching it back, maybe doing small edits at the top and tail of recordings

- will be going with a Sony flat screen LCD (17 or 19")

- I've spent enough on the rest of the gear, so want to pay as little as possible, though I could probably go up to about £160 if needed.

- It needs to be PCI Express

- I'm going to get a dedicated TV card in future to handle the TV reception etc etc, but don't know if it would have the video in/out sockets on this, or whether these need to be on the graphics card, so any advice/clarification on this would be helpful too...

Help me I'm confused!!!

Thanks in advance.

[John Prophet]

Welcome to the forum!

I never keep up with graphics cards...there are just too many new ones every week

as far as the TV reception part I suppose there are two ways to go about it

you can either get an "all in one" type card...where you have the video card and the TV capture card all-in-one...or you can get the Tv capture card seperately

A lot of people like this TV capture card http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...122-180&depa=1 There is also a "pro" version that has a remote control

Here is another one http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...122-200&DEPA=1

check the reviews there to see what people think


In some ways it makes more sense to get them seperate...so that you can later upgrade the video card without upgrading the TV card also


JP

[geordiekid]

Thanks for the welcome!

That's what I was thinking... keep things separate so that I can upgrade later on... (and also buy the TV card later - the funds are a bit low at the moment...)

I am surprised how hard it is to choose a graphics card though - the manufacturers don't make it easy for themselves... or us!

[bombledmonk]

A 6600GT should fall below your price range. I'd highly recommend that.

[John Prophet]

best thing to do is get a clear picture in your mind of what you need etc..then look for a "shootout" type comparison where they compare several cards

If you just need a decent general purpose vid card then your choice is easier because there are 9 million of them out there, lol

this one seems recent and looks to be from the UK http://www.bit-tech.net/review/387/

7 more cards compared http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...ookie%5Ftest=1

recent shootout based on Radeon x700 http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...?cid=3&id=1468




Cheers, JP

[geordiekid]

Thanks for the advice - looks like a geforce 6600 is one to go for...

[SpaceSquad]

Originally Posted by geordiekid

Thanks for the advice - looks like a geforce 6600 is one to go for...

make sure its the 6600GT, the regular 6600 isnt worth the money imo

[mateo leet-o]

ya definately go with the 6600gt, i got a 1 and it hasn't let me down yet. Plays doom, hl2 on high settings and it overclocks really well