Advice on vid card pls (hurry)

[ddpdaver]

Sale last while quantities for a few days....

Powercolor Radeon HD 4350 600MHZ 1GB 600MHZ DDR2 HDMI DVI VGA PCI-E Video Card

Specifications [ Edit | History ] - by David_W @Jun 16, 2009
Graphics Engine RADEON HD4350
Video Memory 1GB DDR2
Engine Clock 600Mhz
Memory Clock N/A
Memory Interface 64bit
DirectX Support 10.1
Bus Standard PCIE 2.0

Price is reg $54.99
on sale for $44.99
after mail in rebate $34.99

Now I know you get what you pay for but in comparison to other more expensive cards specs, these seem to be pretty good. I know nothing about them however.

What do i want out of it? Just to free up some memory...while I use 3D max....and for it to work decently for some games I guess.

Is this a don't waste your time buy? or is it good enough...I don't really want to go out and spend $300 cause I'm not using it very much for gaming or 3D right now.

thanks for any opinions.

EDIT: my desktop computer is Gateway...1.84ghz dual core....lots of hard drive space and 3GB ram....with a max total of 4gb. I'm using windows 7.

[Train]

Does your gateway even have a PCI-E slot?

Post the mdel number.

[ddpdaver]

Hi Train,
I DO have a slot for it. As for the model number...I'm at work so if its necessary would have to wait til 7pm tonight. Forgetting support....is the card descent enough? like it would play for example a video game etc.......The one I'm using now is ON BOARD so anything is better then that....but I don't want to waste my time and even little bit of money if I'll have to upgrade that new card in weeks etc

[Train]

What does the game call for? That is what we really need to pay attention to.

[ddpdaver]

I understand what your saying and getting at...all things that make sense to ask...guess I was just looking for is anyone heard of this card before? descent? worth it? etc...
I'll do more research when I get home thanks.

[rockinup1231]

That card is using 64bit, DDR2 memory. It has alot of memory, but that won't mean much because it won't be able to push data through that weak interface fast enough to push good framerates. The card will just get congested on modern games and the gpu won't be kept very busy, so you won't see the gpu's true abilities because of that limitation.

If you want decent performance, get a card with about 256mb - 512mb (in that range) of memory, and make sure it's memory is at least 128 bit GDDR3. It makes a big difference.

Also, Windows Vista and 7 both allocate a chunk of memory on RAM for graphics spilloff regardless of whether or not your card has enough memory. Having a gig of graphics memory that is the same speed as your ram will yield little benefit.

And Powercolor isn't a popular brand. They tend to make cheaper cards, so I don't know if I'd trust their reliability.

If that card had better memory and a better memory interface it'd probably be a decent card for what you intend to use it for. What kind of graphics chipset/card does your Gateway have now?