best cheap card (under $40) for WOW

[TechBoyJK]

A friend of mine wants to get into WOW so he bought a computer off a friend of his for like $50.

He asked me to fix it up. It only had 512MB of ram, but I had an extra stick laying around that I hadn't touched in several years, so I gave it to him.

Everything works fine. I reinstalled the OS, installed WOW, installed the wireless card he bought, and its all good.

Except for gaming; He only has an AGP ATI 7500 with 64MB of ram.

WOW plays, but only in windowed mode in 800x600 with everything on low. It looks like an n64 version of WOW.

I'd like to find him a cheap card with at least 128MB of ram (prefer 256MB), like a gforce 5200 or something. Just something to allow him to play full screen at 1024 res with medium settings.

I found a few cards on Newegg, but I'm out of the loop as to what was a good performer or not. He doesn't have much money, so even $40 is a stretch for him right now. So its really important that I'm able to get the best bang for the buck, and every buck counts.

 

[SlowSpyder]

For that price I think this would be one of the times where it makes sense to look at used cards on Ebay or the classifieds here/other forums. Maybe you can find a GeForce 6600GT or something (not sure if a Radeon 9800 Pro/XT meets the WoW min feature spec or not)... but something along those lines is much faster then the FX5200 and would probably be able to be had for around that price.

 

[Foxery]

His whole system is pretty outdated - WoW is also very CPU bound, and any P4 will struggle with it, no matter the video card. If that's really all he can afford to buy, shoot for at least a GeForce 6600 or Radeon 1600 range to see some improvement. Earlier series will be right at the game's minimum requirements, and not very helpful. (His is technically below the system requirements!)

 

[taltamir]

WOW was very light on systems when it was released, it has seen grown significantly in both visual quality and in system requirements. upgrade your whole box.

 

[Wreckage]

You will need to search the for sale forums or eBay for a good $40 AGP card. Something like a 6600GT/6800 or X19xx series should work pretty good.

I have ran WoW at 16x10 on a 6600GT AGP.

 

[Rockhound1]

I did a quick scan of Newegg and if you want a new card, you are going to have to spend about $60. Here is a link to a Radeon X1650PRO with 256MB of memory (Link). You can find cheaper new cards, but most will have a 64-bit memory interface. I would recommend you get a card with a 128-bit or higher memory interface.

You might have better luck looking for a used card in the FS/FT forums.

 

[taltamir]

look for used video card, look for used ram too because WOW likes ram.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: taltamir
WOW was very light on systems when it was released, it has seen grown significantly in both visual quality and in system requirements. upgrade your whole box.

not an option. he's going to struggle to give me $50 for the card.

It's a charity case basically. I'm going to chip in the difference to get him a 256MB card with at least 128MB interface like what was suggest. x1550 or whatever.

He should be ok playing the Original WOW (all he could afford at the time) at medium/low settings on 1024x768 with that setup.

 

[ghost recon88]

I would look at getting him an ATI X850 or X1600 series, or nVidia 6600 or 6800 series.

 

[nitromullet]

Used AGP X800 Pro should do the trick. I've played original WoW and TBC on an X800XL AIW @ 1680x1050 w/ 4xAA on a Sempron box with 1GB RAM, and it worked great.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ASUS-RADEO...%3A50#ebayphotohosting

This seller actually has a lot of cards for sale, good feedback too.

 

[cKGunslinger]

I've played WoW on an XP1700 w/ ti4200 @ 1024x768 and it was totally playable. Granted, this was before the latest round patches that are now crippling my C2D and 8600GT.

My previous rig had an x800 AGP (perfectly fine). Wife's current WoW-box is an 6600GT AGP @1440x900.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: taltamir
WOW was very light on systems when it was released, it has seen grown significantly in both visual quality and in system requirements. upgrade your whole box.

not an option. he's going to struggle to give me $50 for the card.

It's a charity case basically. I'm going to chip in the difference to get him a 256MB card with at least 128MB interface like what was suggest. x1550 or whatever.

He should be ok playing the Original WOW (all he could afford at the time) at medium/low settings on 1024x768 with that setup.

well if you havent bought a card yet, I have a PNY 6600 256mb agp that is in my backup pc. that pc has onboard video so I dont even need the 6600 and I am the original owner of the card. PM me if interested.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: taltamir
WOW was very light on systems when it was released, it has seen grown significantly in both visual quality and in system requirements. upgrade your whole box.

not an option. he's going to struggle to give me $50 for the card.

It's a charity case basically. I'm going to chip in the difference to get him a 256MB card with at least 128MB interface like what was suggest. x1550 or whatever.

He should be ok playing the Original WOW (all he could afford at the time) at medium/low settings on 1024x768 with that setup.

well if you havent bought a card yet, I have a PNY 6600 256mb agp that is in my backup pc. that pc has onboard video so I dont even need the 6600 and I am the original owner of the card. PM me if interested.

I'm going to buy something new for him. Thanks though. He was lucky enough to get the money for the card, so I'm not going to take any chances and will buy from a reputable dealer.

How about this card?

x1300 256MB - $40


x1550 512MB 128bit memory interface - $50

 

[Pederv]

Set my nephew up with a 2800+ Barton clocked just below 1.9GHz with 2GB ram and an AGP 3850. My brother got him WOW and now he can't get him off of the computer.

 

[OCNewbie]

Once in a blue moon they have had 9600GSO's or 8800GS's (same card basically) for $30-$40. This was after rebate though I believe. Awesome performance for that price though.

 

[MustangSVT]

Originally posted by: OCNewbie
Once in a blue moon they have had 9600GSO's or 8800GS's (same card basically) for $30-$40. This was after rebate though I believe. Awesome performance for that price though.

that's nice, but he is limted to AGP.

6800 GT would be the best bet imo.

I've used it to even play oblivion.

 

[IlllI]

i would not bother spending money on a new card. specially not with such an old system. and not when you can buy a better one thats used

 

[Toadster]

a friend of mine just upgraded to the nVidia 5200 series AGP card today, was only 128MB RAM on the card, but it was $54 brand new with fanless heatsink...

you can spend $80 and get an HD38xx series AGP card which would be pretty good with 512MB RAM

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Toadster
a friend of mine just upgraded to the nVidia 5200 series AGP card today, was only 128MB RAM on the card, but it was $54 brand new with fanless heatsink...

you can spend $80 and get an HD38xx series AGP card which would be pretty good with 512MB RAM

just upgraded to an FX5200? wait what year is this?

 

[OCNewbie]

Wasn't the FX5200 pretty dismal as far as performance goes? Pretty sure I've seen those go for free-after-rebate a number of times too.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: OCNewbie
Wasn't the FX5200 pretty dismal as far as performance goes? Pretty sure I've seen those go for free-after-rebate a number of times too.

yes they were horrible 4 years ago and I cant imagine using one now.

 

[phaxmohdem]

eBay Item # 350149894962 (Link was too large and made an error)

Methinks, that would be about all you'd want/need for a P4 2.26 system. Then again, I've never tried to play WOW

 

[poorboy168]

IMO More RAM might be a better bang for the buck. The biggest jump in performance for me playing WOW (pre-TBC) was upgrading from 1GB Ram to 2GB on my laptop (running an ATI 9600)

Also why does it only run in windowed mode? I thought that would be even more resource intensive. I've been running Wow on my P4 desktop with a Geforce4 Ti 4200 for the last 3 years on 1280x1024. I forget if thats better or worse than your ATI 7500.

 

[themisfit610]

Um... really? I ran WoW just fine on my backup PC, which has a Sempron 3400+ in a 780g motherboard with only 1GB of RAM (cobbled together out of spare parts). Sure, It ran at 1680x1050 with mostly low settings and no AA, but it was smooth.

I don't see RAM being a huge issue.

Anyway, your best bet would definitely be the FS/FT forums, or possibly eBay. I think a Radeon x800 would be a good fit! I see a few on fleabay for ~$50. Bravo for helping out a buddy with his computer, especially when WoW is involved

~MiSfit

 

[xSeongminx]

I know how it feels like to be in a stretch and I actually have a 9600XT that is sitting on my desk. If you want it, it's yours. Can't guarantee that it'll run WoW well but I'm sure that it'll do better than any 5200.