Need a decent graphics card for my Aunt

My Aunt is in the process of getting a new computer and asked me to help pick out parts and assemble it. I know a good deal about high end GPU's and such, but I am quite ignorant when it comes to the lower level.

The card does not have to be anything special, in my Aunt's own word's "as long as I can play solitaire", so you see she is easy to please. That being said I still want it to be decent, good at playing movies and maybe some very light gaming if here nephew's ever wanted.

Money is not an issue for her, but it shouldn't cost too much for what she needs. It will of course be a PCIe motherboard. We haven't decided on XP vs Vista yet, so that might/might not matter.

X1900GT is $90,thats one helluva deal.

The X1900GT looks like huge overkill, I LIKE IT. For the price it looks like the obvious winner with XP, but....

Now if she decided to go with Vista, would there be something better for her, remember this is basically a non-gaming PC. If memory serves me correctly, some people were talking about how good the 2600PRO(or something similar) was at HTPC kind of stuff.

Why doesn't she just get integrated graphics? You can play solitare on it and you can lightly game on it, I do (it wasn't my choice) and it's cheap. She doesn't need a graphics card...queenfan66

No, she's got the money, so I am not going to make her suffer with an integrated GPU.

HD 2600 pro

good for hd movies and light gaming like WoW or something

For a non-gamer 2600Pro/8500GT are good choisedayaccus007

So this card would do her a good job? Should we get that X1900GT if she goes with XP, or will the 2600 still be better for her?

just get one of these no point in buying any good card just get this has 128mbenough for dvd playback etc http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125073IQT786

And what if she goes with Vista, no areo at all. I mean money is not an issue, now I don't want to waste money, but I feel getting something that low end would be regretted, if not immediately, eventually. But like I said I am very ignorant about lower level GPU's, so that one might serve her well.

Also I haven't mentioned it here cause I did not think about it, but she has considered getting a LCD TV with a 19x12 res, and if she wanted to hook the PC up to it I doubt that would run it too good. The 2600 Pro would be powerful enough for this, non gaming of course?

[QUOTE="IQT786"]just get one of these no point in buying any good card just get this has 128mbenough for dvd playback etc http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125073opamando

And what if she goes with Vista, no areo at all. I mean money is not an issue, now I don't want to waste money, but I feel getting something that low end would be regretted, if not immediately, eventually. But like I said I am very ignorant about lower level GPU's, so that one might serve her well.

Also I haven't mentioned it here cause I did not think about it, but she has considered getting a LCD TV with a 19x12 res, and if she wanted to hook the PC up to it I doubt that would run it too good. The 2600 Pro would be powerful enough for this, non gaming of course?

dont listen to those people saying go with onbaord. The HD 2600 pro is like 80 bucks. come on. if you dont wanna spend that much atleast get a HD 2400 for 50 bucks. DO NOT get a GPU from 2 generations ago (aka nvidia 6 series/ ATI x100 series)

HD 2600 pro

good for hd movies and light gaming like WoW or something

darkmagician06

i would go with hd 2600 too

might as well get vista if you're going with the 2600

i hear it is better for watching movie with vista

[QUOTE="IQT786"]just get one of these no point in buying any good card just get this has 128mbenough for dvd playback etc http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125073opamando

And what if she goes with Vista, no areo at all. I mean money is not an issue, now I don't want to waste money, but I feel getting something that low end would be regretted, if not immediately, eventually. But like I said I am very ignorant about lower level GPU's, so that one might serve her well.

Also I haven't mentioned it here cause I did not think about it, but she has considered getting a LCD TV with a 19x12 res, and if she wanted to hook the PC up to it I doubt that would run it too good. The 2600 Pro would be powerful enough for this, non gaming of course?

well, you can buy a motherboard with onboard graphic and test it out and if you or your aunt doesn't like it, then decide rather or not to buy an add on graphic card

Only for solitaire? Why don't you just go integrated graphics?

But get an IGP motherboard with a PCI-E slot just in case she wants to upgrade graphics later (e.g. most AMD 690G mobos, Intel G965/G35 mobos and NVIDIA 630i (?) mobos have a PCI-E x16 slot for future graphics).

Don't just stick to onboard graphics or some cheap-o graphics card. She may THINK she'll only be playing solitaire, but it's only a month before she complains that 1080p movies are jerky. Zeke129

So wait, now all of a sudden she's going to go out and buy a Blu-Ray player while trying to stick to a small budget?

Here's what I'd look for in a graphics card:

1: People like having all their system RAM, and not having it dissapear. To this end, I would stay away from Turbocache/Hypermemory cards - if you're going that route, I'd just stick with onboard (probably the new GeForce 7 chips, as it has a DVI port built-in on most models). Even for 1080p movie watching, 256MB of Video RAM should prove to be more than enough.

2: Keep it quiet - gamers might not mind a loud graphics card since they can't hear it over the explosions in their headphones, but there's nothing that ruins a scary movie or touching scene like one of your fans ramping up in the middle of things. Go for a fanless card here, and try to get a quiet power supply (Corsair VX450w) to help keep system noise minimal.

3: Go mid-range, or go home. There's basically no point (in my opinion) of owning a low-end card, with very few exceptions. Since you mentioned she's not going onboard, go mid-range. Between $75-$110 should be your budget here.

Taking all those things in mind, I highly recommend the HD2600Pro as well, preferably a fanless version. The 2400XT/Pro wouldn't be a bad call either, but I'd prefer the extra oomph of the 2600 over the 2400.

Don't just stick to onboard graphics or some cheap-o graphics card. She may THINK she'll only be playing solitaire, but it's only a month before she complains that 1080p movies are jerky. Zeke129

Isn't that more of a CPU-related thing? I recently saw a Toshiba notebook with Intel X3100 graphics that had an HD-DVD drive.

I honestly wouldn't spend more than $50 on a graphics card, for her needs.

I don't know guys, Solitare is pretty demanding....lol. But I would recommend Vista and that 2600 as well. Just make sure everything else is all nice and silent. That way like RayvinAzn said, movies will be a whole lot better. Plus your going to be watching them on a big TV so that card should fare well with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125074

HD 2600 PRO passively cooled by Gigabyte.

Good for general desktop use and HD streaming (once you set it up through the decoder). Also has native HDMI with sound support.

But really, if she's not going to be watching a lot of HD movies on her PC, you may as well stick to an integrated solution like the 690G Chipset with HDMI support.

[QUOTE="Zeke129"]Don't just stick to onboard graphics or some cheap-o graphics card. She may THINK she'll only be playing solitaire, but it's only a month before she complains that 1080p movies are jerky. Wesker776

So wait, now all of a sudden she's going to go out and buy a Blu-Ray player while trying to stick to a small budget?

There is no budget, she could afford 8800 Ultra SLI, it's just not a gaming PC. I just figured with what she was going to use it for no need to spend tons of cash on the GPU.

I will be talking with her tomorrow and going over all this with her. As of now I am going to suggest the 2600 PRO to her. I think that is the best decision. It will easily do anything she wants to do now and should cover anything she want do do in the near future.

The finished specs haven't been worked out yet, but right now we are looking at a Q6600 or a slightly faster E6XXX, leaning towards the quad. 2GB's of some decent DDR2. 2600 PRO, almost definitely. We aren't 100% sure, but we are leaning towards the Corsair's 450w, just wish it was modular. I am leaving the case completely up to her considering she will be looking at it everyday not me.

While these specs are more than she needs now, she has had her last computer well over 3 years, so she likes to keep em a while. But thanks to everyone for the input, I will definitely look into the fanless 2600 like Rayvin suggested.

I'd recommend the X1900GT from Newegg. It's only $89.Cyborg-21

That is huge overkill. I'm a gamer and i only have a 7600gs! And she will only play solitare! I would recommend a 7300 with passive cooling. It's will play most games ok, it could max out world of warcraft. It would be quiet, unlike the x1900 which would be noisy, and would play solitare and other games well and it would be fine for watching DVD's. And you don't need a super graphics card for Vista aero. My friends laptop intergrated graphics run it just fine. If she's not a gamer then you really don't need to waste your money on a high end graphics card. It will also cost more on the power bill in the long run. I guess it all depends on how 'light' her nephews gaming is.

Also, just because she hasn't got a price limit, it doesn't mean you have to get the best stuff. save her some money. A quad core is VERY unnecessary for a computer used for solitare and DVD's. I mean, i have a pentium 4 with a gig of ram and a 7600gs and its perfect for DVD watching and solitare. Infact, it even works well with heavy video editing and encoding, it's also an allright light gaming machine and it runs very fast on normal apps, infact a computer as crappy as mine would be perfect for her. She really will not need high end components so don't waste her money. I guess an argument for getting her good parts is that she would be futureproof, but to be honest, if all shes gonna do is internet, solitare, and movies then she doesn't really need to have a futureproof computer.