Time to invest in a new graphics card

Time to invest in a new graphics card
By
Dvotee
– August 13, 2011Posted in: Latest News/Reviews

As the title suggests, I felt it was time to upgrade my graphics card. I have an HP computer and it is not for gaming, it is for the business that I run and for that, it does the job it is employed to do adequately.

Having said that I do play World of Warcraft on it and whilst it has always been playable, all of the graphic settings have been on low. The game ran on ok apart from a slight screen judder which wasn’t that noticeable and it was something I just got used to.

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed though that the game is getting more and more juddery and every now and then it would freeze, make a weird noise and then go back to normal. So the decision was made.

I went for the low end of the market and purchased this:



As I said it is the low end of graphics cards and cost me £35.00 but as I previously mentioned my pc is for my business and I don’t really play that many games on the PC.

I installed it earlier and once all the drivers were in and I sorted my resolution out I fired up World of Warcraft. The game didn’t appear to freeze so all was great, then I decided to look at the view, resolution etc etc and below are 2 shots from the same spot, I’ve not moved just changed a few graphical settings. I need to run a full test on what I can increase them too but I think you’ll agree, the change is freaking amazing.

Here’s a picture at my old setting of me hovering above Stormwind

And here’s the same shot after I change 2 settings..I haven’t moved at all just changed a couple of things

As you can see, my range of view has increased dramatically and whilst I do need to test this out, the setting has moved from low > fair> good so I still have 2 settings to try out and that’s only the start. Everything is just so much sharper, clearer and it’s taken on a completely different look and feels like a totally different game.

Maybe I will see some of them ‘ol gankers now coming from afar as usually I don’t see them until they attack so watch out all of you, I’m now Geforced up.

I’d hate to think what I could do if I actually had the money to invest in a top of the range graphics card but this will have to suffice, it has to as gaming on this pc is not a priority and yes I’m sure some of you will say that’s old technology, you could have got x, y or z for this but if I gamed a lot more on PC then maybe I would have but I’m happy and that my friends is the main thing ;)

Now….should I save up for a purpose made gaming pc??? Hmmm there’s food for thought !