upgrade from 6800GT
I have never owned a ATI card before. I have been with Nvidia from the start. My Leadtek 6800GT works very well with most games I play. I want a little more and was thinking of this card. Will it be better that the 6800GT I have now, and how does it compare to the 7800GS Agp from Nvidia? Here is a review I found for it. It sure looks pretty...
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For the games that are already running fine with 6800GT you will not see much difference. But some of the new games need a better card for the best visual quality. Such games I know by experience are Company of Heroes and FIA GTR2. X1950Pro will run them at higher visual quality at 1280x1024 or 1680x1050. And if you care about it, 3DMark05 score of X1950Pro is ~2X better than 6800GT. So, you should be able to see a noticeably better performance in the new games with this upgrade. It is for sure better than a 7800GS, I would compare it with 7900GT or an overclocked 7900GS. But, if you are interested in overclocking, X9150Pro is not a good overclocking card unlike 7900GS.
I bought an ASUS EAX1950Pro PCIE sometime back when it was $165. There was not much problem other than it was running hotter than I liked. And there was almost no overclocking margin at all. I read in a forum from some people, especially Sapphire owners, that the power circuits were really hot and causing instability. Although the performance was very good, I swapped the X1950Pro with a friend's XFX-GF7900GS since it was one of the best overclockable boards, running cooler, and at a lower price. After overclocking (see sig) I can say 7900GS is at almost the same performance with X1950Pro and running without any heat issues. If 7950GS will be similar to 7900GS I would be excited about it.
Additionally, the latest AGP cards from ATI has an AGP-PCIE bridge chip (they call Rialto) on the back side of the card which also is on my X800XL AGP card (see sig). It gets very hot and, I suspect, it is occasionally causing instability on my computer. I have been looking for an opportunity to replace the X800XL with a 7900GS (7950GS?). But I have an advantage that Asrock 939Dual supports PCIE as well as AGP
I don't like the ATI CCC or whatever they call it but it's the best video card I've owned and probably my best hardware purchase so far.
Motherboards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Category=20&N=2010200022+1070907495+107191007&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=22
Graphic Cards:
7950GT's
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150189
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130066
With some of the options you can keep the price at $350 or go up to $400 depending on what series GPU you get and Motherboard.
With what I have seen Biostar, ASUS, DFI, and even Foxconn offer great 939 products and I have built many systems with all of their products. For graphic cards I have narrowed down my choices these days to XFX and EVGA as they are the kings of Nvidia cards... next to BFG and ASUS who both make great cards also...
If you upgrade the motherboard now to buy a PCIE card, you will need to upgrade the motherboard again when you buy a new processor. On the other hand, if you buy an AGP card now, you will not be able to reuse it with your next motherboard. It seems like both strategies have disadvantages. I think buying an economical mobo from Sledge's link and the best PCIE card you can buy is the better option. Good luck!
Either way you're going to have some spare hardware in a year or two, I got a budget motherboard which I'd have no problem with flinging when it comes to upgrade time.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136163 Looks like a good board for the money.
So in my opinion staying 939 isn't all that bad... unless you do want cutting edge top of the line CPU power down the road. but that will cost much more $$$.
To be honest at the rate CPUs are rolling out with more cores etc... All our setups will be obsolete in just a year or so...