DDR3 is better (read faster) than DDR2, but that's the only difference. Since you aren't a heavy gamer, it won't really matter.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-GeForce...sr=1-1-catcorr

That one is cheaper, has half the video ram (again you wouldn't notice any difference since you're not a gamer, in fact the only game I've even seen that complains about too little video ram is Grand Theft Auto 4, and it has been argued many times that that game is an unoptimized pile of poo...)

So for £34.95, you could have quite a decent upgrade.

By the way, I have the Zotac version of this card (with 512MB of RAM) at work and I can almost play GRAW2 through Wine with it. By Almost is that even with some of the settings set to high (it doesn't seem to perform all that differently with different settings) I still get about 10-15 fps, depending on how many AI are on the map.

If you want to wait, and I remember, I can test it out in my system at home and see how well it plays BD discs.

slaapliedje

looks good, because I was only wanting a cheap one, didnt want to invest to much money as I was wanting to try and build a computer from scratch in the future.

I read this from wikipedia "DDR3 SDRAM or double-data-rate three SDRAM is a modern kind of dynamic random access memory with a high bandwidth interface. It is one of several variants of dynamic RAM and/or associated interface techniques that have been used since the early 1970s, and it is not directly compatible with any of the earlier types, not even with DDR2 SDRAM. This is due to different signaling voltages, timings, and other factors."

I had a look and my current one is 256MB DDR2

Ykho, as I had personal experiences with Nvidia and Amd VGAs,
I would go for an ATI.
I currently bought a HD 6850, is not the high end most users
would want, but it's what I can afford right now, and I can run games
on high settings.
I see you do not want one for games, so maybe you could read reviews,
and/ or tests of some graphics cards for things like HD video playback.
You can also give a look at this page .:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...n-hd-5000.aspx
Where you can choose the best options that suite what you want, ( Help me choose section ) and
they should inform you what vga is the best for you.
AND, last, not least, from personal experience too, always go for
the good manufactures like Sapphire, XFX, EVGA or Point of View.
Never had an Asus vga tough, not sure if it's good...
From these manufactures, I like Saphire the most, good coolers,
and low power usage.

nice to see that this community helps with other problems and questions too
regards

@Ykho

Hi m8 most cards have 2 DVI slot and with both HDMI and VGA adapters. Being said that I would also go for Nvidia rather then ATI mainly because of CUDA wich takes off a lot of burden from your CPU. Mind you I got an ATI, but probably gonna change too... Because of Linux and CUDA.

PS: I got the same case as yours just a bit more packed:P

If you gonna buy Nvidia card get EVGA if ATI/AMD get XFX

I bought my card for $100 AUD a few months ago, and it has HDMI, DVI and VGA. 1Gb RAM from memory. Runs Half Life 2 of full resolution/quality perfect on my 2.8GHz Celeron with 2Gb RAM (ex school computer). I run XP as well.

Can't remember the name of the card, sorry.

Not to mention that AMD/ATI's drivers suck (yes even in Windows. I've had far more issues with my one AMD/ATI HP Touchsmart than I have with anything else. Hell, even the little multitouch demos that were made for Windows 7 and the laptop run a bit choppy.)

I used to buy Matrox cards, solely because their video quality on CRTs couldn't be beat. Unfortunately they didn't quite have the funds to keep up with monsters like nVidia and ATI, so they stopped trying for the 3D acceleration king, and went with the Multi-Head king. Which they were the first ones to do it, and they are still King. Then I tried an ATI Radeon 9200 back in the day, and they had decent enough open source Linux drivers, but the Windows drivers were horrible. This was shortly after they had started doing their Catalyst drivers (The drivers were absolute dung before that!). While they've improved over the years, it's still very hit and miss.

For normal 2D stuff like you're doing though, it really won't matter on an LCD. Though the CUDA also helps with HD playback, if I recall correctly (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

slaapliedje

Having loads of experiance in the matter, I recommend Nvidia. Assuming you want to do some gaming, I recommend the GTS450 - It should run most games at 1920x1080 and mid-high settings with decent framerate. Nvidia also has CUDA and great OpenGL performance(For applications that use it) as well as good DirectX performance.
Heck, you can even easily OC it without issue - EVGA provides their Precision OC tool(Which seems to work on -all- mfgr's cards) which allows custom OC/UC profiles that can be switched with the press of a key.

ATI's cards are almost exclusively "Gaming" cards - No CUDA, poor(er) OpenGL, and the drivers are horrible.

Now, like one previous poster said, because your chipset is Nvidia, you really want a Nvidia card - Conflicts are -not- nice.


edit:
Another thing you are going to need is a quality PSU upgrade. You've got a FSP 250W, and that's good for your current rig. But a new card will use at -least- 50W of that.
I suggest Corsair or a good FSP-based PSU(A bunch of quality PSUs out there are FSP rebrands.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo
Here's a good one; Overkill, but it's on sale and quite cost-effective. If you use the rebate, it's even more so.
It's made by FSP just like yours, and will handle anything you can put against it.

Hi everyone!!
thanks for all your opinions, recommendations and advice
I have went with slaapliedje's recommendation and have ordered the following card,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-GeForce...sr=1-1-catcorr