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Ask the Editors: Upgrading video on a PC without a graphics expansion slot
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Upgrading video on a PC without a graphics expansion slot
June 13, 2005


Q
I recently bought a new eMachines T5026, and while I am quite happy with it, I have found out that it lacks an AGP slot. So I was wondering, what would be the best moderately inexpensive way to upgrade my video and still get good performance for future gaming?
Submitted by:
Jim,
via e-mail
Rich Brown
Rich Brown
Associate editor
Sadly, you're pretty much cooked. With no discrete graphics card expansion slot, the best you can do is add a standard PCI graphics card. Because the bandwidth of the PCI slot is so limited, though, you won't get satisfactory performance in yesterday's games, let alone down the road. This performance bottleneck is also why PCI 3D cards typically come only with lower-end graphics chips. PCI video cards aren't totally worthless. They can provide additional video inputs and outputs, and they can also improve overall system performance because they typically have their own graphics memory, freeing up system memory that would otherwise be shared with an integrated graphics chip (such as the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 chip on your eMachines T5062's motherboard). Unfortunately, the best way to upgrade your video in this case is probably by buying a PC with the appropriate slots.



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In addition to his duties as coeditor of the desktops section, Rich Brown is responsible for covering graphics cards, PC audio hardware, and input devices.