dell 3000 graphic card upgrade

i am upgrading my dell 3000 with a graphic card. I am not sure how to tell the difference between a pci and pci express port. Also i am looking for a good quality card to play half life 2 in high quality graphics. If anyone has any ideas on a card around the price range of 150 - 300 dollars that would be helpful.

first, *smacks on nose* bad double poster..lol, i kid.

second the difference between pci and pci-e is this pci=very little bandwidth[thats bad!] and pci-e=a lot of bandwidth[thats good!]

the minimum and reccomended specs for a computer running hl2 are

now, we'd have to know other specifications about your computer to help you out with hl2. let me tell you, it runs like crap on 256megs of ram, so an upgrade to 512 or even 1024 is necessary.
your computer also only comes equipped with pci slots, so no gurantee about really great performance but this and this as well as these two[youre pretty much limited to those, btw, those are in american]

thanks umm for the help if there is any thing else i need to tell you or whatever just reply me or message me or what ever thanks

here are the specs on my computer

512 mb of ram
3.00 GHz
direct x 7 i believe am not sure
windows xp
mouse
keyboard
Earthlink dsl internet


i was thinking about this graphic card what do you think here is the link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814139166 [/u]

for under $300 you can get a better card than that and another stick of ram.

really well that is good
where would you reccomend looking for a graphic card and a stick of ram

newegg, i posted several links for graphics cards in one of my earlier posts. but just in case, here they are again http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=1603
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=1603
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814145087
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131411

as for ram, since you have the 3.0 ghz proce3ssor, we can go for pc3200 ram. however, we wouldnt want to be mixing ram speeds so we need to know what type your current ram is. it is either pc2700, or pc3200

how do i figure out my ram speed

Go here and download this it will tell you all about your system:

http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php#download

WC

umm i believe it is pc3200 i am not sure could you tell me where in this aplication i could find it

Under the memory tab??? Possibly???

WC

it isnt undre memory but i found it. it is pc3200

My bad ....the spd tab...lol....was trying to remember from off the top of my head. apologies.

WC

well i am saying i found it the number is pc3200 if you have any suggestions on ram stick

How much more do you want?

Get this gfx card
http://www.shentech.com/bfggefx59oc1.html
i have and love it.

or the 6600GT (PCI-e)
http://www.xpcgear.com/nx6600gttd128e.html

6600GT (AGP)
http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.a ... Video+Card