What PCIe card ?

Am running a Dell 4700 that only has chipset graphics. I have upgraded to
Vista Home Premium and would like to get the full Aero experience but I am
not into games.
I only have 512mb RAM at present but am going to add a further 1gig shortly.
I would be quite happy getting a cheap second-hand card as long as it will
run the full Aero experience ie glass/3D etc.
Any suggestions?

Thanks

"Pat" <peejayw@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
news:146A7348-653A-4936-8EF1-44439719CDFE@microsoft.com...
> Am running a Dell 4700 that only has chipset graphics. I have upgraded to
> Vista Home Premium and would like to get the full Aero experience but I am
> not into games.
> I only have 512mb RAM at present but am going to add a further 1gig
> shortly.
> I would be quite happy getting a cheap second-hand card as long as it will
> run the full Aero experience ie glass/3D etc.
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks

I have an PCIe Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 128mg video adapter that supports Aero
Glass very nicely. Cards with this chipset start at $82 on www.newegg.com.
I don't know if this is the best bang for the buck at the moment though.

When looking for a graphics card, make sure the card has Vista support,
further, with 1G of RAM, make sure the card doesn't lean too heavily on
onboard memory (that is on the 1G), a lot (most) PCI-X cards use a
combination of memory on the card and memory installed in the system.

Lastly, check the power requirements that the video card presents to
your system -- higher end PCI-X16 cards pull a lot of power (and
generate a lot of heat). The thing here is that with a cheap second
hand card, if it has active cooling (fan) -- the trick is to make sure
the fan works properly and is reasonably quiet.


--
Barry Schnur

"Pat" <peejayw@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
news:146A7348-653A-4936-8EF1-44439719CDFE@microsoft.com...
> Am running a Dell 4700 that only has chipset graphics. I have upgraded to
> Vista Home Premium and would like to get the full Aero experience but I am
> not into games.
> I only have 512mb RAM at present but am going to add a further 1gig
> shortly.
> I would be quite happy getting a cheap second-hand card as long as it will
> run the full Aero experience ie glass/3D etc.
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks
>

I like my ATI x1300 Pro (256MB VRAM, non-shared, PCI-Express).
You can have as much as 4GB System RAM with Vista Home Premium, more with
Vista Ultimate. I currently have 2GB (4x512MB PC6600) in my system, and
Vista runs sweetly.

--

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original newsgroup and thread.
------------------------------------------------------

I have an almost 2 year old Intel MOBO with chipset graphics and it runs
VISTA Aero without any problem. I just had to insure that the chipset had or
supported 128MB of onboard/shared memory and that the main memory was more
then 512MB.

"Donald McDaniel" <orthocross@comcast.invalid> wrote in message
news:ukc1417SHHA.2228@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> "Pat" <peejayw@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
> news:146A7348-653A-4936-8EF1-44439719CDFE@microsoft.com...
>> Am running a Dell 4700 that only has chipset graphics. I have upgraded to
>> Vista Home Premium and would like to get the full Aero experience but I
>> am not into games.
>> I only have 512mb RAM at present but am going to add a further 1gig
>> shortly.
>> I would be quite happy getting a cheap second-hand card as long as it
>> will run the full Aero experience ie glass/3D etc.
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>
> I like my ATI x1300 Pro (256MB VRAM, non-shared, PCI-Express).
> You can have as much as 4GB System RAM with Vista Home Premium, more with
> Vista Ultimate. I currently have 2GB (4x512MB PC6600) in my system, and
> Vista runs sweetly.
>
> --
>
> Donald L McDaniel
> Please reply to the original newsgroup and thread.
> ------------------------------------------------------
>

> I like my ATI x1300 Pro (256MB VRAM, non-shared, PCI-Express).
> You can have as much as 4GB System RAM with Vista Home Premium, more with
> Vista Ultimate. I currently have 2GB (4x512MB PC6600) in my system, and
> Vista runs sweetly.
>
Regarding memory, it isn't Home Premium versus Ultimate -- it is 32 bit
versus 64 bit. I don't think the Home Basic version comes in both 32
bit and 64 bit, all the other iterations do.


--
Barry Schnur

All of them come in both 32 bit and 64 bit, however, only Ultimate contains
both DVDs in the box, With the other versions you have to order the 64 bit
and possibly pay shipping.

See the following link;

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...a/default.mspx


"BSchnur" <BSchnur@cox.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.2035624ebe96cc4c98972b@msnews.microsoft.c om...
>> I like my ATI x1300 Pro (256MB VRAM, non-shared, PCI-Express).
>> You can have as much as 4GB System RAM with Vista Home Premium, more with
>> Vista Ultimate. I currently have 2GB (4x512MB PC6600) in my system, and
>> Vista runs sweetly.
>>
> Regarding memory, it isn't Home Premium versus Ultimate -- it is 32 bit
> versus 64 bit. I don't think the Home Basic version comes in both 32
> bit and 64 bit, all the other iterations do.
>
>
> --
> Barry Schnur