Upgrade video card for UT3

The EVGA 7600 GS 256MB on NEWEGG works just fine on a P4 3.0 Ghz system with 1GB ram at 1024 x 768 with maxed everything. This card was supposed to be my wifes christmas present, but after many hours of troubleshooting (her games would freeze up during load and they arent that much of games) plus replacing her 135W PSU with a 350W with no success (thinking it was drawing too much for the poor thing) we swapped cards. She now has my 9800 Pro which works just fine in it (She now can play UT2K4 just fine now), and I have the 7600 GS ( oh, happy days). Plus, it has a $20 mail in rebate from a less than $100 price tag. Dont go for anything less than that, even in the 7 series cards, the performance hit is too great.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130076

Flak Monkey wrote:

Dont go for anything less than that, even in the 7 series cards, the performance hit is too great.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130076

I concur.

Flak Monkey's seems like a good deal.

(DC)DEMONSLAYER wrote:

Spike wrote:

Hmm.... the calculator (thanks Demon for the link) says my system rates around a "12" which is "Low-Med" - however, when I played the demo I thought it was just unplayable (maybe I just didn't like the fuzziness)

Anyway, I'm still stuck with AGP (Dell 8300, P4 2.8GHz, ATI X800GTO-512, 4GB Mem) I could upgrade the video card a bit but that's about all...

...unless there is a CPU upgrade? The problem with Dell is that you don't know what motherboard you have, etc...) Any thoughts on that?

Ouch. Dell's motherboards are made by un-related 3rd party vendors and can be touchy (Dell will not even list their MB vendors). Replacing the video card can be dicey and I believe you will have to stick with ATI. Contact Dell support and ask them what newer cards will work with your current setup.

True on the motherboards - but I've had good luck upgrading the video card... I'm on my third upgrade from what I originally bought and have flipped betten Nvidia and ATI in the process with no issues (caveat: one has to know how to remove/re-install drivers or there will be problems)

On calling Dell... well, let's just say that I'd rather not spend the time on the phone talking with someone in India who is just reading from a script... the only reason I ordered Dell this time is because I was tired of building my own and didn't want to keep up with all the latest components. I will look at the parts list that you posted and I'll ponder building another computer. Thanks Demon!

Here's my outcome from all the help I received here:
I started out with Radeon 8500 which wouldn't run 3DMark06 but did run 3DMark03 with a score of 1500+.

I ended up getting a GForce 7600GS and ran 3DMark03 on that with a whopping 8100 score!

I ran 3DMark06 on it and thought I got a bad score with 2071 until I checked some other scores on their site. The closest I found to my score was:
Score: 2060
CPU: Athlon 64 3500+
GPU: Diamond Radeon HD 2900 XT (PCI-e, 512MB) (394.99+)
Motherboard Model: A8N-SLI
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista64 bit
System Memory: 3GB

This make me happy because all I had was:
CPU: Athlon 64 3200
GPU: GForce 7600GS ($57 off ebay)
Motherboard Model: K8VSEDX
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
System Memory: 1GB

and I out scored him! I know 2071 still isn't a great score but I can now play UT3 and UT2004 with better settings... watch out.

Glad to here it. I too now play 2K4 at a higher res.. 1280 x 1024 ( the max my old monitor will go) with no frame drop from my old video card at 1024 x 768 (where I play UT3 at currently with max settings).

Not bad Fodder. You made me curious, so I ran mine;

Single Card:

Main Test Results

3DMark Score 5679 3DMarks

SM 2.0 Score 2259 Marks

SM 3.0 Score 1943 Marks

CPU Score 4208 Marks

Detailed Test Results

Graphics Tests
1 - Return to Proxycon 17.695 FPS

2 - Firefly Forest 19.953 FPS

CPU Tests
CPU1 - Red Valley 1.391 FPS

CPU2 - Red Valley 2.036 FPS

HDR Tests
1 - Canyon Flight (SM 3.0) 17.127 FPS

2 - Deep Freeze (SM 3.0) 21.739 FPS

1619019th in their comparison testing

SLI Mode:

Main Test Results

3DMark Score 9591 3DMarks

SM 2.0 Score 4057 Marks

SM 3.0 Score 3500 Marks

CPU Score 4203 Marks

Detailed Test Results

Graphics Tests
1 - Return to Proxycon 31.523 FPS

2 - Firefly Forest 36.089 FPS

CPU Tests
CPU1 - Red Valley 1.397 FPS

CPU2 - Red Valley 2.024 FPS

HDR Tests
1 - Canyon Flight (SM 3.0) 31.062 FPS

2 - Deep Freeze (SM 3.0) 38.933 FPS

790222nd in their comparison testing