Trying to figure out what type of video card I can use?

Question

The pc I'm trying to find a new video card for was made for us by someone (we moved or would ask him). All the parts where bought from NewEgg. The computer just recently had been fixed. The video card's fan started scraping which caused it to stop & the HDD fried trying to work without it. The guy didn't know it had a video card problem & just thought it was the HDD at first. He quoted us a price & then found out about the video card but put a cheap one in for free. We mainly use the PC for games. I'm wanting to buy a better card from Walmart but don't know what one to get that can be used or what ones are good. I think it had some ATI Nvidia GeForce on it orginally. Don't know much about the cards. Also if I find one how do you install them onto the PC? Do you just switch the old one & then run a disc? I didn't know if the old cards info would interfer with it or not.

Answer 1

  All Video cards are not PCIe, they still make AGP cards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...

Yes AGP is the older of the two slots but PCIe is not in reality that much faster.

First you must find out what slot your mobo has for a video card, Hopefully its either AGP or PCIe, if it doesnt have either of these then your comp is probably not worth upgrading.

Im guessing its AGP.

Since you use your comp mostly for games the Video card is very important, I would get the best card you can afford for best performance in the game you like.

Dont buy some cheap card from Wal-Mart that you will end up replacing anyway because it wont run your games. Invest in a decent card that you will be happy with down the road.

The link I gave you is all AGP cards, from most expensive to least

Newegg is a quality place to buy with good service.

I recommend an ATI 3850 with 512 onboard memory.

Good luck

Answer 2

go to device manager and find the video card. you need to know if it's agp or pci-e. if it's agp, you may as well throw it away. all video cards today are pci-e. if it's pci-e, the best value for a video card today is the radeon hd 3870 or 3850.