Getting a new Graphics Card...

[Povuholo]

Alright I'm getting a new graphics card. Of course I don't want to be bottlenecked by my CPU, so I'd like to get some advice.

 

What I have right now (I don't know what everything is called in English and my computer is in Dutch so I could be a bit vague):

Using Microsoft XP home edition
Intel Pentium 4 with 2.66 GHZ (Overclocked to 3.00 GHZ), 768 MB RAM
A 128 MB RADEON 9500 PRO / 9700 (Whether it's 9500 PRO or 9700, I don't have a clue)
'Something' is PCI, ISA, USB.
My screen's highest resolution 1024x768.
Single Core, 1 thread.
Bus speed 132.8 Mhz, whatever that means.
Graphics interface version AGP version 2.0, whatever that means.

Is this all the information you'll need? Oh and it's a *screams* Dell.

 

I'd like to buy a 256 MB card, and I prefer ATI. I don't know about the price exactly, but with 2.66 GHZ I can't buy something too fantastic anyway without it being bottlenecked by the CPU... I think.

[Switch]

Hmm... have you checked first that you can actually get the case off, and access the AGP slot okay? Prebuilts can be a pain like that.

 

256MB is about the best you'll get with an AGP system (it's 8x I take it?). I have AGP 8x myself, and use a GeForce 7800GS 256MB (OCed by overclockers.co.uk). My CPU is an AMD 64 3000+, which I think is kind of equivilant to what you've got (at least, I think P4s are 64-bit?). So you could try that card. I think ATI have some offerings as well, but they concentrate mainly on PCI-E, and don't support AGP as well as NVIDIA, as far as I know. It looks like Dabs has an X1650Pro 256MB on offer, I must admit I didn't know those existed for AGP... not sure how one of those compares to the 7800GS.

[Povuholo]

Hmm... have you checked first that you can actually get the case off, and access the AGP slot okay? Prebuilts can be a pain like that.

Didn't do that yet.

(it's 8x I take it?).

 

I don't have any knowledge of this whatsoever, so I'll just guess a bit. The AGP 8x you are talking about, is that the 'transfer rate' of the AGP? (I'm using that program linked to in the pinned thread of the oblivion technical forums)? If so, mine is 4x.

(at least, I think P4s are 64-bit?)

I don't have a clue where to look that up. The screen is 32-bit colours, but that's something different right? :mellow:

 

So far I've been advised a Radeon X850XT by the way, which is also 'AGP'.

 

If you hadn't guessed yet, I don't really know what I'm talking about here. ;)

But I understand it... Enough.

[Switch]

Yes, I believe that is the transfer rate. If yours is only 4x, then I'm afraid you're going to get pretty pathetic performance with any card you buy. :( I'm not even sure that a modern AGP 8x card will work in a 4x slot. You could try, I guess. The X850XT would be more likely to work than the X1650Pro anyway, I expect. I don't know if there's some way to find out prior to buying.

 

And yes, 32-bit colours doesn't have anything to do with your CPU. ^^

 

Have you ever actually tried installing your own card yet? If not you might want someone to show you how...

[Povuholo]

Have you ever actually tried installing your own card yet? If not you might want someone to show you how...

 

Nope. But I think my parents know how... I hope ;)

 

Yes, I believe that is the transfer rate. If yours is only 4x, then I'm afraid you're going to get pretty pathetic performance with any card you buy.

So... I have to upgrade that as well if I want to get any advantage of the new graphics card (if it even works)? Might as well buy a whole new computer... :rolleyes:

 

How about 'replacing' that? Can you just buy an 8x AGP and put it in or isn't it that easy? Oh and instead of changing this into a chat room, could we talk on msn?

[karkarinus]

An 8x agp card will work with your existing setup, but only at the 4x speed of your board. The only way you can upgrade to higher than 4x agp, is to get a new motherboard, and if you do that you'd be wise to go straight up to a decent PCIexpress. Until recently I had a similar dilemma, and in the end I got a whole new 'puter, because the rest of my setup would have slowed everything down anyway. Your CPU should still be good for a while (speed-wise) but you will probably find that you can't put it in the latest motherboards. I recommend a new setup, as times have changed and yours (sadly) seems to be coming to the end of its "improvability," as the new technologies are rapidly phasing out compatibility with the old ones :(

[agent0002]

you would have to buy a new motherboard to get around the AGP 4x, but if you want to keep your cpu, you will have to find out exactly what model you have (i forgot the name of the program that can do that, google it) cause you'll need to know the socket type, and if you want to keep your RAM, you'll need to know what speed it goes at as well. and if you were going to get an AGP card, an x850 would be the best. i have an x1600, and i know for a fact that x850's (and x800's) are both quite a bit better.

 

if you want to keep an AGP card, and you think you might want to get a new video card in the long term future, i know there are motherboards that support both AGP and pci-express. (i have one sitting in my closet)

 

(p.s. if you are going to buy computer parts, do yourself a favor and use newegg)

 

if you want any advice on what specifically to buy, you could PM me if you want. cause computers are my thing.

[world69star]

My Wife's PC is an Athlon XP 2400+ with an agp 4x slot. It was my old rig and originally had a geforce 3 in it. I put a geforce fx 5700 ultra in it and it worked fine on the 4x agp port even though the card was an 8x card. I then gave it to her and built a new system for myself, that was in late 2004, now I will be doing it again after x-mas.

 

That 4x/8x it a ruse as it isn't that important really. If you are getting a 256mb card that is fast enough you won't have to worry about it anyway as it is just the speed of the bus for doing agp texture transfers, for when you run out of video memory it swaps from the system memory at 4x it does this at 264mhz, and at 8x at 528mhz (bus speed 66 x agp port = agp transfer speed) You want to avoid having to even use that though and most games won't have to use it accept maybe TES 4 or Battlefield 2, any other game will be fine with it. The card is the same speed on either 8x or 4x. In fact it wasn't till the geforce 7900's and ati x1900 series cards that pci-express was even needed as the agp bus was never maxed when pci-express first came out.

 

My advice: Go for the geforce 7800 at agp(fastest agp card) if that is too much money get the 7600gt!!! they are even faster then my 6800gt card(btw which is also agp) I would stay away from any ati agp cards as they are not as fast as the nvidias for agp for what you can get!

[agent0002]

oh yeah, he had a point that i forgot.

 

the first motherboard i had my x1600xt in was using a pci-express slot locked in x4 mode. i upgraded it to a new motherboard with a x16 slot and had 0 performance increase. AGP is still fine for anything but the top end models right now like he said (and the top end models they don't even make for AGP for that reason), but like i said, for the future, which is a good thing to plan for, you might want to go with pci-express still. That is, go with pci-express if you think you will ever be upgrading your computer again.

[Povuholo]

I asked my parents and decided to buy a whole new computer. My dad didn't mind, because my brother has a very old computer on which he can't run the MMORPG's he plays, so he plays them on my dad's computer, which means they kind of share it. By giving this computer to my brother, and getting me a new one by combining a little from sinterklaas, christmas, my upcoming birthday and some of my own money, I have a nice computer and my dad has more time for his.

 

CPU: E6300 Intel Core 2 Duo

MOBO: GigaByte GA-965P-S3

POWER SUPPLY: Antec Basiq, 500 Watt

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, 250 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB, Serial ATA300 w/ Perpendicular Recording

CASE: Cooler Master Centurion 5

RAM: Corsair TWIN2X1024A-6400, 1024 MB, DDR2, PC6400, 800 MHz

VIDEO CARD: 256 MB Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro

MONITOR: Belinea 1925 S1W, 19 inch or Acer AL1916WAs, 19 inch.

 

As well as

This Keyboard, This Mouse and This Sound Card.

 

This costs €1117,- when I choose the first monitor, and €1089,- when I use the cheaper one. I'm probably going to take the first (slightly more expensive) one.

 

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Thanks for all the ideas though :happy: