AGP and PCI

edited October 2006 in Hardware
Hey,

Why is it that i can only use AGP graphics cards? is there a way i could use PCI graphics cards? here is my system specification: • 3.4GHz CPU
• 2GB of RAM
• Intel Pentium 4 Processor
• I currently have RADEON ALL-IN-WONDER x800 series but getting a new graphics card soon.
• Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo T

Give me your information if you could, thanks.

Comments

  • botheredbothered Manchester UK
    edited October 2006
    I think people need to know which motherboard you're using. Everthing I can find doesn't say. Does it have pci slots?
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Sure, you're likely to have 2 to 5 PCI slots, but PCI graphics cards are slower than AGP ones (of the same type) and better cards are available for AGP than PCI.
  • edited October 2006
    Like these guys have already said, you should be able to use a PCI video card if you have an open PCI slot. But the performance of PCI video cards is less than the AGP varieties

    Now, you cannot use a PCI-E video card in your AGP board. Your present motherboard doesn't have any PCI-E card slots, so you can't just shove a PCI-E video card into an AGP slot. The PCI-E video cards are totally incompatible with AGP slots.
  • edited October 2006
    Ok well thanks for the replies first of all, yeah well i was wondering what was best AGP or PCI? but ofcourse there is PCI-E, which is the best one i presume? Do any of you recommend me getting a new motherboard and which one would be best suited for my computer?

    Thanks.
  • edited October 2006
    It all depends on how old your system is, whether to upgrade the mobo and processor to a newer model or not. If you are running an older P4 system with a slower processor, it might be better to start over from scratch but if you have a fairly modern system you might just upgrade to one of the higher end AGP video cards like something based on the Nvidia 7800GS gpu or ATI Radeon X16xx series video cards. A PCI based video card is by far the slowest option for a video card.

    Can you give us more specifics on the hardware you presently have in your computer. Such as computer manufacturer (if a prebuilt model), motherboard model, processor speed, and memory type and size. With this information we can give you a better opinion as to whether it is better to buy a new AGP video card or just bite the bullet and recommend you to buy or build a new system instead. I wouldn't want to see you buy a $200 video card to put into some old system that has a 1.8 P4 processor in it as you wouldn't see much gain in gaming prowness because the system would be bottlenecked in performance due to the old processor. And with AGP video cards on the way out, it's hard to recommend a high dollar video card to a system that is an antique in computer components. :)

    EDIT: I see that you have your processor speed and ram listed in your first post. If you are looking for an upgrade over what you presently are using for a vid card, either a card using the ATI X1600 or X1650 pro gpu or the Nvidia 7800GS gpu would give a decent performance boost and about as high a performance video card you will get for an AGP based video card. Of the 2, I would think the Nvidia 7800GS based cards would have the highest performance. If you want to go with a higher performance video card than that, I'm afraid that you will have to do some mass upgrading to your system. Modern Intel stuff is using DDR2 ram nowdays, so your present ram won't work in a new board generally. I think there are a couple of boards out there that use DDR and have both an AGP and PCI-E video card slots, but they are generally economy boards and are equipped with LGA775 sockets.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    You could get a new AGP video card, but there are not a lot of better ones out there.
    If you build a new system you will need to change almost everything, mobo, CPU, memory, and of course your video card.
    Why do you need a new video card? What games do you play?
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    The 7800GS "AGP" will improve your graphics over that X800, and the 7800GS also supports a few key tech's that your X800 very much lacks, and that todays games need "if you want to see the eye candy" ...
  • edited October 2006
    edcentric wrote:
    You could get a new AGP video card, but there are not a lot of better ones out there.
    If you build a new system you will need to change almost everything, mobo, CPU, memory, and of course your video card.
    Why do you need a new video card? What games do you play?
    I want to play BF2142 on high and also BF2. im definatly having a look at the one i explained in another post which is the one sledgehammer said.
  • edited October 2006
    Ive just played the BF2142 demo and it was in a populated server and i was quite laggy.. i just dont have a clue what the problem is, and im spending loads of money on things and when i test them out they dont work = waste of money, i just really hope(cause ive now ordered the GS7800 gfx card) that that will sort out this damn mess, then i wont have to keep posting on here for you people to say what could be wrong with it. I might be getting my gfx card tommorow so please all say a prayer for me.. lol. and just soooo hope the graphics card will work, and also fix the problem with BF2142 and BF2. thanks and goodnight!
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Define "laggy". Do you mean that the graphics were laggy or do you mean hits not registering and such and people jolting around?
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    You could have a $10,000 computer, but if you have a crappy connection to the internet then you're gonna lag in any online game.

    Generally you want pings of less than 100ms, at least that is my preference, but sometimes it cannot be helped becuase it depends on the servers connection as well. Plus a good amount of bandwidth.
  • edited October 2006
    Ok well the answer to EX's question would be its very heavy, and you know when you run on BF2 or BF2142.. it hides my gun SOMETIMES even when im not running, for like a second, and when i turn, it turns more than i want to and i just cant control my aim because its really heavy and slow.. laggy is maybe too much of an internet connection word you would use but my ping is around 17 which i think is fine. Its just really slow and maybe the word lagg is appropriate and its basically impossible to play if im in a really full server, or if i have my graphics set to medium or high, if i had my graphics to high and went in a high populated server the game would probably just die.. but never tried it.
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