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Friend needing a upgrade...

Velcro

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Hello all,
My best friend currently has a compaq presario desktop with the following specs: P4 @2.8ghz with coolermaster big heatsink, 512mb ddr400, 80gb samsung sata, onboard sound ect. The good news is the pc has a PCI-E slot for upgraded graphics. His intel onboard graphics is having a hard time playing today's newer games. So for his birthday I want to get him a new video card that is sub 70$ that will run his games alot better then integrated garbage. He is tired of coming over my house to play the games maxed out lol. I've looked around newegg alot but I want to know some of your suggestions for the best card in this price range. Thanks everyone.:toast:
 
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you're not going to get a good pci-xpress card for that much. maybe around 150-200, but not under 70
 

JC316

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zekrahminator

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I hear you man, wanting to get your friend the best you can for their birthday and not having quite enough cash to do it all :). I personally reccomend the Sapphire X1300 series. It comes with a fan, 256MB of VRAM, a 128-bit memory interface, some nice clocks, and the ability to play oblivion maxxed out (or at least it does on one of my friends computers).
 

HeavyH20

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Well, the 3DFuzion (BFG) 7600GS is a 256 MB DDR2 card that can be had for $88. There used to be a rebate, but that is no longer the case. I bought a couple for $58 after rebate for my nephews' PCs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143054

Decent card with 12 pipes. Similar to the X1600Pro.
 
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You might want to consider a used X800/X850 PCIe on ebay. You'll get one easy for the money you want to spend.

Performance wise, the X800 Pro is > X1600
 

Velcro

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Processor AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Manchester EM4 Revision
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Memory 1024MB PQI TURBO (2x512)2.5 3-3-7
Video Card(s) Radeon X800GTO2(r480) Flashed to X850XT PE (540/590)
Storage (Perpendicular recording)Seagate 7200rpm 250GB 16MB Cache,NCQ sata2
Display(s) Samsung Syncmaster 940BF
Case Premier Black Gaming Case With Clear Side
Audio Device(s) 8-Channell 7.1 Nvidia soundmax
Power Supply 450 Watt Dual-Rail Heavy duty Rosewill PS
Software Windows XP Professional SP2
Thank you all for your help you made my descision way easier.:toast: :D I forgot ebay existed lol. Some of those x1300's and x1600s look like a good option too.
 
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