Old PC.. Where is the bottleneck?

[Lallespasser]

Hey all! I've been lurking around this forum for a while, and since you guys seem to be the most helpful and knowledgeable around these intarwebz, i figured i would ask my question in here.

Anyway, I have this problem:

My father more or less only has one wish for christmas this year: a new graphics card.

Now, his computer is pretty old, and me and my siblings aren't exactley swimming around in money, so i would really like to find out where the line goes, where the rest of the computer becomes the bottleneck instead of the graphics card.

His specs are:

Radeon X800 256 MB

Screen Resolution 1280x1024

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2,4 Ghz dual core

Nvidia nForce 630a-based motherboard PCIe x16

4 Gb DDR1 RAM

The budget is around 600-700 DKK, which is around

102-119 USD

70-81 GBP

80-94 Euro

I have searched around, and the cards that seem to be the best solutions compared to the price seem to either be

ATI Radeon HD 4670

or

nVidia GeForce 9600 GSO

Which one would be the best for the rig compared to the price? Or have i overlooked a better card somewhere? Also, the card is not meant to be used for a lot of FPS. He just wants a card that is not being a bottleneck in the games he play, which is mainly Civilization 4.

I trust some of you hardware-gods out there have the answers! :worship:

 

[gotmaxpower]

The HD4670 should be the answer.

Happy Gaming.

 

[Deleted member 9280]

The HD4670 should be the answer.

Happy Gaming.

Ditto.

 

[rrjwilson]

Amd

 

[Lallespasser]

That would also be what i would think. But i've just found a review here on OC3D(Can' link because of the anti-spam stuff),and he says that the 9600 GSO is the best by a small margin.

So i guess it comes down to the GDDR size? The GSO only has 384 Mb compared to the 4670 with 512 Mb. How much of a difference does that make on a 1280x1024 screen? Is that what you are basing your answers on?

 

[ionicle]

the ATi is better value for money, and atm, better performance, yes, the ram has somthing to do with it, but its also the architecture...

 

[Lallespasser]

the ATi is better value for money, and atm, better performance, yes, the ram has somthing to do with it, but its also the architecture...

Great! Thanks, I will get the HD 4670 for him then. Thanks a lot guys!