Video Card/ Harddrive

[chewie8008]

Can you guys tell me if this stuff is compatible with these computers? I have two PCs...looking for video card and hard drives.

The first PC specs are:

Windows XP
1.4Ghz CPU
224MB RAM
Nvidia Geforce 2 Integrated GPU(32mb?)
40Gig Harddrive

I am looking at least like a 128mb card? Like...
RADEON 9550 128MB $57(Pricewatch)
RADEON 9600 128MB $67(Pricewatch)

As far as harddrives I have no idea what type of brand to look for...

$73 - Firewire 80GB
$29 - SCSI 50.0GB

I'm mainly wondering if these things are compatible with these computers and if not, what would be?

The other PC is a little older, specs are...

Windows 2000
1 Ghz CPU
261MB(261,356kb) RAM
8MB Nvidia Riva TNTZ Model 64
20 Gig HD
Clock Speed 1.0 ghz
Bus Speed 1.33mhz

Thanks for any help

[redwudz]

Those are two medium low end video cards sufficient for most uses. They should be compatible as long as the computers have AGP slots.

The hard drives are a little confusing. I would just add a 80G hard drive to each machine internally. If there is no internal room, then purchase an inexpensive Firewire card, a Firewire hard drive case and put in a 80G or bigger IDE drive and put it together yourself.

SCSI wouldn't really serve any purpose with the computers you listed. SCSI is more of a high end setup. Firewire is plenty fast enough for most purposes. I would also spend a few dollars more and up the RAM on the XP machine. That's a little low for XP. Win2000 could benefit from more RAM also, but it doesn't need as much as XP.

These would be good utility computers, as long as you aren't planning to to do heavy video encoding or editing. They would be a little slow there.

[Soopafresh]

Before you do anything, beef up the RAM in that XP system. That will give you the most bang for the buck by Far - much more than a new video card. Bump up to 512MB if you can - you won't regret it. Move the existing RAM from the XP box into your 2000 system, and buy a single stick of 512MB for the XP box. Dunno what kind of RAM your system needs - could be PC-133.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=20-159-006&DEPA=1

Also, check out NewEgg.com for cheap video cards -

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=14-139-149&DEPA=0


As far as the drives go, the SCSI won't work unless you have a SCSI controller inside the computer. Most don't. Also, the firewire drive is external, and you'll need a firewire port on your PC to work with it.