Which video card should I buy?

Question

I want to buy a gaming card for my PC. I have 2 PCIe 1.1 slots, a 1x and a 16x. They are NOT PCIe 2.0 . Also, I have a 19" CRT monitor that I am not planning on upgrading so the card has to have VGA out. I use 32 bit Vista Home Premium and I have 3GB RAM.

More info about my PC: http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/1009189/1009189sp2.shtml

Also, I'd like to keep the price under $150 if that's possible.

Answer 1

you can get an 8800gt for $105 (excellent buy)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...

if you can go $5 over your budget you can get a 4850 which will blow away off pretty much any nvidia card under $200

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...

This card is a lot faster than the 8800gt.

You can connect crt to either via dvi converter which comes with each card.

Answer 2

8800 GT. $134 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...

PCI-e 2.0 is backwards compatible with PCI-e 1.1, 1.1 has lower bandwidth though.

Answer 3

ati 4850 fot the win but it all depends on what chipset are you using. ati 4850 really rocks right now and is better than 8800gt and even 9800gtx in most cases. a real bang for the buck. get the msi. very good card. but one thing, you need to fix the fanspeed and try to flash your bios to fix some bugs from early revisions like the fanspeed to low and the card runs very hot. son't worry, it won't void your warranty as long as you flashed it right and the fanspeed os pretty easy to do and very safe. or you can get a non reference pre-overclocked palit sonic