Which video card is best for my computer?

I have a HP Media Center Desktop, to make it easier i have this link where you can see the specifications of my computer: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docum...





Details you need to know to answer my question:


•I have Win Vista Ultimate intalled instead of the original "Windows XP Media Center".


•My monitor is an Acer AL2216Wbd 22" LCD with a recommended resolution of 1680x1050.





The reason i wan a new video card is because when i play games like "Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Stronghold legends, fifa 08, Prince of Persia, i have problems with the graphics and sometime it is very slow and the graphics don't keep up, that's why i think i need a better video card than the one my computer came with. when i use the Media Center in Windows Vista Ultimate it's very slow. Is the size of my monitor the reason why everything is slow now or is Vista the problem? New Vid Card or go back to XP

Which video card is best for my computer?
Not knowing the "minimum requirements" for the games you mentioned, here are my two thoughts.





1G of RAM with Vista is not a great situation at all. I'd recommend that you get at least 1G more for a minimum of 2G of RAM. RAM is pretty cheap right now so you could even pick up an additional 2G for about $100 or less.





Video: you currently have 128M video card. With Vista and your games, it pretty much overloaded. Do some shopping online and you should be able to find a video card with 512M of RAM for under $100.





Those two upgrades would do wonders for you.





Vista vs XP: I own a copy of Vista Home Premium. I tried it. Didn't like it. I went back to XP after a month of trying it.





Vista is mostly eye candy and basically doesn't do much more than XP does. It is also VERY processor intensive. So your PentiumD 2.8GHz is going to work pretty hard trying to run Vista and an intense game at the same time.





Those are my thoughts. Hope this helps.
Reply:Your computer is rather old for running Vista. I really think you should go back to XP, because your memory and cpu will hold you back.





The good thing is that you can just add another 1gb of memory to speed things up. Your grafix card can take pci-e which is good also.





Your system doesn't tell me how much power you have. As such, I would suggest getting an older 7900GS or 1950pro. Those are very fast cards and will have no problem with the games you listed.
Reply:It dossent stand what kind of PCI E slot you have. If you have x16, you can take all "x16 Pci e". If you dont have any PCI E x16 ( x4 or x1 ) then you just can take almost bad cards.





Best card: 8800GTX SLI