Some Video card help and other stuff!

[Guest mister foozel]

Ok, for the people that I trust know what they're doing more than me,

 

I have a bunch of questions that need answers and some general help mostly related to my crappy video card being crappy.

 

Now, first of all, if any one has ever played Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault on PC may see where I'm coming from on why I want so badly to get a video card that can handle this insanely REEKING OF AWESOMENESS game.

 

My first question:

 

I went to Future Shop and was looking at some video cards, and was gonna but one when the guy working there was asking me about "PC 133 SDRAM" and "DDR" and stuff like that, and was wondering what my computer was to see if the video card would be compatible.

 

So, what does all that mean, and how can I see what kind of that thing I have on my computer?

 

Second Question : What are the major differences between an Intel Celeron and an Intel P4? Does P4 already come with a 32MB video card?

 

I will think of more questions I had before when they come back to me.

 

So can anyone help???

[Guest razazteca]

Celeron is a cheap version of Intel chips, it lacks certian features that are on the P4 chip.

 

video cards and Intel chips are usually 2 different things.

 

DDR is better than PC133 in general

[Guest mister foozel]

DDR is better than PC133 in general

thanks for the other info

 

but does P4 come with the 32 MB video card,

 

and how can i tell what i have specifically?

 

what i know so far is that my graphics software is by intel and is a 4 MB video card (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

[Guest MrRant]

Certain motherboards may have a built in video card

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

Whatever you do, avoid intergrated (built-in) video cards. They're a pain in the ass when you upgrade, because some systems have bugs disabling them. In other words, it won't let you. My reccomendation is to get a motherboard w/o an intergrated graphics chip.

[Guest DrTom]

"I went to Future Shop and was looking at some video cards, and was gonna but one when the guy working there was asking me about "PC 133 SDRAM" and "DDR" and stuff like that, and was wondering what my computer was to see if the video card would be compatible."

 

I'm not aware of any video cards that require you to have SDRAM or DDR. "PC133" refers to the bus speed at which it runs. SDRAM will work in anything from older Pentium 3's to the newest of the Athlon XP's and Pentium 4's. DDR stands for Double Data Rate, and it runs at 266 MHz, which matches the bus speed of recent Athlons. DDR is better than SDRAM, and costs about 20-25% more for the same capacity.

 

"So, what does all that mean, and how can I see what kind of that thing I have on my computer?"

 

You might be able to look at the memory modules and tell. If it's PC100 or PC133, it's SDRAM. Also, DDR hasn't been in wide distribution nearly as long as SDRAM, so if your PC is more than a year old, it's very likely you have SDRAM.

 

"Second Question : What are the major differences between an Intel Celeron and an Intel P4? Does P4 already come with a 32MB video card?"

 

The major difference is that the Celeron does not have as much on-board cache as the P4. Intel also packages them with older motherboards and chipsets, allowing them to be sold at a lower price. The early Celerons, based off the Pentium II, were garbage, but the quality has improved since. Current models are based off the P4, but don't offer the same performance. There's nothing wrong with a Celeron for a basic home system, but if you're serious about playing games and doing other processor-intensive things, you're much better off with a P4.

 

No CPU comes with a video card per se, but it's common for PC manufacturers to use motherboards with built-in video. I would encourage you to avoid this. Sometimes, onboard video is quirky to disable in BIOS and can cause conflicts with your real video card.

 

If you're going to get a P4, though, you should spring for RDRAM. It's a little more expensive than DDR, but runs at speeds of up to 1066 MHz (new P4 chips have a 533 MHz bus, btw). SDRAM basically cripples a P4, DDR does a little better, and RDRAM is easily the best. If you want to save a little money, you can go with an AMD Athlon XP. Their performace with DDR is equivalent to a P4 with RDRAM, but it comes at a nice savings... which allows you to do things like get more RAM, upgrade your video card, etc.

 

Edit: about two months ago, I configured a PC for a friend of mine, using Atlas Micro. It was an Athlon XP 2100, 1 gig DDR, 128 meg GeForce4 video card, DVD-ROM, 80 gig hard drive, network card, etc. It came to a little over $1300. A comparable system with a P4 was over $1700.

[Guest DrTom]

Here's a good link with a lot of useful information about buying a video card.

[Guest mister foozel]

Here's a good link with a lot of useful information about buying a video card.

man you have helped more than i thought anyone would

 

thanks a lot!!

 

and if anyone else thinks they have more info that i may need to know(but i think my questions were all answered)

 

feel free to add more

 

thanks again DRTom!

[Guest razazteca]

just curious is your computer a name brand one like Compaq or Gateway or Dell

[Guest mister foozel]

just curious is your computer a name brand one like Compaq or Gateway or Dell

ibm