Re: Shopping for a good cheap video card

[Adam Glauser <adamglauser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan wrote:
> I'm not a gamer, my son is (Second Life and others I'm not familiar with),
> and he is shopping for a new video card after the one that shipped with his
> now two-year old PC (using WinXP) gave up the ghost the other day.

You need to be aware of what sort of slot his computer has for video 
cards.  The two alternatives are AGP and PCI-E (aka PCI Express).  I 
can't remember when PCI-E became standard, but I think with a two year 
old PC you could have either.


> Is spending $50 on a video card expected to handle video intensive games
> asking for trouble?

Probably.  Video cards become obsolete at an astonishing pace when 
you're talking about gaming, let alone the potential quality problems 
with a budget-focused manufacturer.  Tom's Hardware has a useful tool 
for comparing cards: 
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/graphics-cards/3dmark06-v1-0-2-hdr-sm3-0-score,538.html

HTH,
Adam