Hey guys, could use some help/advice.
I've got an old (~7 years) Dell desktop. Still working fine, but we got a new monitor for it recently and I think the poor little nVidia GeForce2 graphics card (so outdated that nVidia's latest driver bundle won't even recognize it) is having a little trouble keeping up. It wasn't built for this kind of high resolution, and it's not entirely sure what to do with the widescreen format.
So I'm thinking upgrading the graphics card is the way to go. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since I've done anything like that.
Dell's website is giving me some refurbished options, but they look overpriced. I could get it elsewhere, but I'm not entirely sure what the old motherboard is designed to handle.
From what I can see on the motherboard and Dell's online documentation for the system, the current graphics card is plugged into an AGP 2x slot.
The thing is that the card options it's offering me for the system (specifically marked as compatible with a Dimension XPS tower) say "low profile," and I think they're PCI.
I do have an open PCI slot or two, but I'm not really sure if that's the best option (or even really a workable one).
I also don't really know much about the performance specs of, say, the Radeon 9800 vs the GeForce FX 5200. They've both got 128 megs of RAM, but Dell wants $400 for the Radeon and $80 for the GeForce. (And is either one really going to be able to do much for/with the outdated motherboard?)
I'm not particularly picky. I'm not doing a lot of high-performance gaming on this thing or anything. Pictures, web surfing, etc. I just need something that's compatible with this old comp and yet can handle the resolution and formatting of this new monitor (which Dad picked out while I was away). Is that even possible?
Any suggestions?
Paul
