Upgrading your Mass-Market System, Part 1 - Memory, Before I Forget
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Next you have to decide on your memory. For an awesome explanation of computer memory bandwidth and timings check out our article on it.
Going by the processor I have, the mother board I got to accompany it, and of course cost considerations, I went with a dual kit of Kingston ValuRam. It consists of two sticks of 128mb running at PC-3200 and cost about $55. Obviously if you’ve got a little more cash to throw around, go for two sticks of 256mb.
Finally I had to decide what video card to get. When I asked him what kind of games were being played on the computer he said, “…some kiddy games, card games, some deer hunter game, and a fishing game. Oh, and maybe something a bit newer.” Had he not thrown in that last bit I would have just used the on-board graphics (some motherboards have a graphics chip built in, which can handle very simple graphics). But if you want to play any newer games you’ll want some type of video card. Your main two choices for video card brands are nVidia and ATI. I went with a fairly cheap nVidia GeForce FX5200 w/128mb for around $70.
Actually the, two companies that I mentioned are the makers of the graphics chip that’s on the videocard, but the actual videocards themselves are made by many different companies. For instance, the card that I chose had an nVidia chip but was manufactured by a company called Gainward.
Other popular card makers are Gigabyte, BFG, PowerColor, Sapphire, and others. The quality of the cards vary from chip to chip but price almost always dictates quality. Also, different card manufacturers include different bundles such as games and extra wires/adapters.
Video cards start around $40 and go up to more than $400, unless you want to be on the absolute cutting edge, I wouldn’t recommend spending more than $200. I have a $150 card in my personal system and I can play newer games just fine. We have a review of very nice card in the $200 range right here. As far as quality goes, at least for the current video card market, you get what you pay for. If you spend $400 on a video card you can expect to get the ultimate gaming experience by turning up all the quality settings in your games. However, if you spend $200 you’ll still get high quality gaming but without all the bells and whistles as far as quality. Throw down $50 and you’re going to see the quality come down considerably, where the games will be playable on the lowest quality settings. They probably will not lose much of the fun factor--just don’t expect any eye candy. Of course, even with a $50 card you’ll see an improvement over most onboard graphics chips.
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