about ams gbox
 

if any of you guys have this computer, what video card should i put on it.

i also want the video card to fit inside the computer too. lol

It's got one AGP and one PCI slot, both look to be standard size. Just go look for a good AGP card. It should fit just fine. ATi and Nvidia both make good cards. For cards at a good price, check out www.newegg.com.

would a 128mb or 256mb agp card be more suitable?

and what brand? geforce or ati?

Oh dear, this may be the beginning of another "Coke vs. Pepsi", "Ford vs. Chevy", "Great Taste vs. Less Filling" war if any of my prior experiences with video card chipset battles still holds true...

I think the bottom line, hard truth is that no matter what you buy, it'll be out of date and needed to be upgraded within a year when Doom 4, Halflife 3, or the next big game comes out. If your budget allows for splurging, might as well splurge and enjoy the ability to max out your quality settings in your games..

go to pricewatch.com or pricegrabber.com and go to video cards and go up as high in price as you are willing to spend. then make sure the card doesn't have extra features you don't need (like tv in or a tuner) and then make sure that it's a good deal for that particular card by comparing to other offers on the same card.

i just want 100+ fps and no lag on doom 3 and half life 2.

so you think a geforce fx5500 256mb ddr agp video will suffice?

i want maximum quality.

Doom 3 is locked at 60fps. So on that side you're pretty much out of luck.

Right now, the only card that will solidly get 60fps on Doom 3 at maximum settings is the GeForce 6800 Ultra. That card will set you back a pretty penny, now if that's out of your budget the GeForce 6800GT is just half a step down, and is virtually the same card, just clocked a little slower, it's also gonna really do well at these games. And if the GT is out of your budget, the 6800 is a really nice card at an almost reasonable price. If the 6800 is out there, well, you should wait for the 6600, the GeForce 6 arch really has some big improvements and is heavily desirable over the GeForce 5/fx series.

Although, when Half Life 2 comes out, the ATI X800 XT is probably going to have better framerates because ATI was more in depth with the development (or so says the word on the playground). I used to be a big ATI fan, and ran their cards in all of my machines, but the 6800 really gave the x800 pro a run for it's money, and is quite a bit cheaper an easier to find, so I swapped sides.

Both Anandtech and Tom's Hardware have written articles about the 256mb cards being slightly slower than their 128mb counter parts due to the memory addressing the card has to do. I don't really thinkg you would have any issue with a 128mb card. Also, if you're going to get a card that will play games like you are wanting to, please make sure there is adequate cooling since the box you are using is so small.

If you do have one of these cards, the internal temperature will increase dramatically with the card and the processor and ram being in such close proximity to each other.