no pci-e slots. am i living in the past?
djshowdown
London
i have an old radeon 7200 card that is quite honestly a bit pants. has never handled games very well and is a bit lacking
what are my options with regards to upgrades?
I have an Intel D875PBZ motherboard if that helps
am i correct in thinking i need an AGP card?
please help, my knowledge in this area in particular is near enough non existent
what are my options with regards to upgrades?
I have an Intel D875PBZ motherboard if that helps
am i correct in thinking i need an AGP card?
please help, my knowledge in this area in particular is near enough non existent
0
Comments
If you plan on changing mobos in a few months I'd think about going PCI-E.
Better than a 7200? OH YES!
ATI's only AGP high end card lacks in support of the new tech, mainly SM 3.0 which is a huge component in today’s games. I am willing to bet you would see a 400% increase in gaming depending on how much ram you have and what CPU you are running.
for the record i am running a P4 3.0 Ghz with HT and have 1 GB of PC3200 ram
although i am looking to upgrade the ram to 2 GB when i got the money
not looking to change the mobo as im not confident enough to do that myself. i am looking to build another pc from scratch to see what its all about so maybe after i have done that then i will have a go. right now im too scared
can anyone recommend any other cards as alternatives as this one is over £200 here in UK. if this is the best value for money then fair enough but what are my options if i just cant spare that much?
much thanks for all your replies thus far peeps!
As far as value for the money though, you might look at the X1650 Pro gpu video cards. I'm not sure of shops in the UK, but I know that newegg has them for about half the price of the 7800GS AGP cards here in the US.
I just looked up an online UK vendor and I see that Klomett.co.uk has the Gainward GeForce 7800GS+ 512MB for a decent price. I know this is even more than you are looking to spend, but that is about the fastest performing AGP card on the market and that is a decent price for it too.
For a much more affordable video card Klompett is getting this Sapphire X1650 Pro AGP video card for £95 any day now, which is more in line with your budgetary needs. And the X1650 Pro GPU also supports shader model 3.0 too. But it isn't in the same league as the 7800GS+ card I linked to either, performance-wise.
Now I don't know how klompett is to deal with or anything though. I have no experience buying anything in the UK, but there are quite a few people who frequent these forums that can recommend a quality store to buy from for a fellow countryman.
As far as future upgrading goes, AGP boards are about at their end now. But Asrock is making an inexpensive Core 2 Duo capable board based on the Intel i865G chipset that has AGP and DDR support that I will be experimenting with next week, for a cheap upgrade for an older P4 machine. This board will let me run the latest and greatest Intel cpu while still keeping my old AGP card and DDR memory. I will be posting about how the upgrade goes next week.
http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Category=15&SubCat=&Name=&Page=1&SortBy=1
Asrock 775Twins-HDTV R2.0 o/b ATi X300
Asrock ConroXFIRE-E SATA2 i945P
If it is one of this lot you are looking at the I can report from the micromart UK, that we have had success with all three they are not overclocking boards but stable and good value, some probs getting the FSb above 300 though.:bigggrin:
will all these 8x ones be going to waste if i install one?
also for the software spec of that sapphire one it says windows vista. does that mean i NEED vista?!?!?
No, you won't need Vista.
i was worried for a second there
am currently searching for the two cards mentioned and trying to find better prices
anybody got any more suggestions they wanna throw in the mix?
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=12905&GroupID=330
some of them look pretty chunky and im wondering wether they are gonna be physically too big to fit into my mobo
http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/bz/pix/D875PBZ_lg.jpg
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1819505&CatId=935
Sledge, the X1950 Pro might just finally be enough gpu to actually use most of the bandwidth of an 8X AGP slot. I don't think you will see hardly any performance hit due to bandwidth constraints; you might lose a little performance from the translator chip they will have to use to convert that PCI-E gpu to an AGP signal. After all, the whole PCI-E thing was forced on us by that evil Intel as AGP was nowheres close to being flooded out. Hence the statement by Thrax that there is almost no performance difference between AGP 4X and AGP 8X.
thanks alot for the help guys
i will probably go for the cheaper option
A) the price is more within my range
B) the more expensive one would probably be overkill for what i need
thanks for the help though ppl
you can bet I'll be bothering you all with questions next time i upgrade something!
anyways
peace
By the way, computer technology moves at a very rapid pace, much faster than say, with automobiles. If you had a ten year old computer, probably none of teh parts, except maybe the fans, would be usable in a new computer. This is not a Microsoft problem. It's just the way technology works. At a point, the upgrade options for any computer become minimal.
But the X1950 Pro has less pixel and raster pipes than the X1900XT gpu too, so I don't think it will take a massive hit in performance like you alluded too earlier. Even if it does take a slight performance hit it will still be a viable upgrade for an AGP system that is otherwise a pretty good machine and extend the machine's gaming prowness. If you are running a socket 939 system like I am, it would still be a good investment because otherwise I would have to upgrade everything else in the system too, since socket 939 is now a dead platform and going to AM2 would also make me have to buy a new processor and ram along with a new mobo.
EDIT: And dj, I'm glad we could help you out with some advice man. Be sure to let us know how well your system performs after the upgrade. And sometime next week I should have some results on my experiment with the new Asrock board that's based on the i865G chipset that is Conroe capable too. Something like this might be an option for you in the future if you want improved performance out of your computer but don't want to have to buy all new components besides the ram and mobo.
thats about as much as ive done with regards to modification
maybe one day i will get the guts to swap the mobo
is it really as simple as just moving all the stuff to the new one?
my comment on microsoft was'nt just relating to the issues raised in this topic
its many others too
like their new policy for vista with regards to upgrades
probably not really relevant but anything to have a dig at microsoft
windows could be such a wonderful program as well
instead its quite good
im sure people would be willing to offload their stuff for cash
but in this particular case it probably wouldnt be worth your while
the card i have at the moment can be had for about £16 in the uk lol
i also have a dvd-r/w that will read and write dvds slowly but cannot read or write to cd's
not that it would be any good to anyone
Yeah, I generally sell my old parts when I upgrade through the Deal Depot here. Depending on how the new board works out, I will be selling the old parts (mobo and cpu) in a week or so.
I agree it won't be a massive hit in performance, but to note the PCI-E versions of AGP cards always tend to be faster cards. The 7800GS is a spit image of a 7800GT, the GT is about 5-10% faster overall. Not that it would be noticeable if you are not a hardcore gamer like myself, but there is a performance loss.