PCI Card Question / Help

[AlphaWolfII]

I believe my video card is dying and causing my computer to freeze up (I've eliminated everything else I can think of except the motherboard). I currently own an ATI 1650 with 512MB of memory. I would like to replace it with an nvidia card. It is a 4 year old PC with PCI. The only inexpensive PCI cards I can find for nvidia are 256MB cards. Otherwise, every card I find is PCI express. Does anyone know of any PCI nvidia cards with 512MB?

If not, how much of a hit will I take for moving to 256MB, even though the card is newer (the main games I play are FS X and Half Life 2)?

Thanks,
AWII

[crainger]

If you play games, you should really consider moving to PCIe. Other than that, you probably will have to turn down texture detail with 256. Depends on the game. FSX yeah, HL2, you probably wont see much difference at all.