New Graphics Card

[tiberian_rebel]

Alright, thanks for the advice. As far as it seems, I think I'd be best off saving my money for a direct x10 card.

[Guest]

Good idea. When that Dx10 cards arrive and you cant afford the one you want then you can get a Dx9 for dirt cheap.

I might even but another 7800GTX at this point.

You will be able to play Dx10 games with a Dx9 card right? You just want to be able to see all of the bells and whistles?

Now as I think about looks like I might have to buy a DX10 card.

Dag Nabbit.

[Dax_inside]

I hear that the first load of games with direct x 10 will also play on direct x 9 cards, but no one knows how long itll last. Maybe 3 months? god knows, i supose it depends on how quickly people buy new cards.

They stopped making AGP cards because they thought everyone was going to upgrade. After 2 months of PCIe they realised the price of AGP cards was so high that they started to make them again! hence the 7900GS AGP. the market controls the speed at which things develop.

[Ash2Dust]

For those looking at AGP video cards upgrades...

Current CPU and motherboards being released do not support true AGP. AGP is about to die completely on the mainstream motherboard market within the next 6 months.

If you dont plan on upgrading your MB, CPU, memory, and video cards in the next year, an AGP video upgrade is a slight possibility.

I've been looking at upgrading my CPU and keeping my AGP video card, there are currently very few motherboard options. I can go after a $150 AMD X2 with a $70 MB now, but motherboards supporting that and AGP are starting to be rare quick.

If I had $700, I would throw away my AGP vid and go after a Conroe and a quality PCIe vid.

[Winter_Lion]

those ppl are running you big money.. take my route.. and hit the radeon 9250.. It runs it just fine and it only cost like 60 bucks..

The Nvidea 6800 series are running below market value for what you get as well. I run a GT 6800 OC w\256megs memory on a PCI-E bus and can set my BF2 video settings at max in all categories with no lag created by doing so. For the bucks invested, you can't go wrong with a 6800.

Winter

[Dax_inside]

the asrock dual sataII mobo is a cheap option offering true AGP still, aswell as socket 939 and AMD's new chip if you buy the adapter.

Its what i have and it does the job. cost me £45.

Edit: it also has a true PCIe slot and sata 2!

[Ash2Dust]

I have no experience with Asrocks. Rumor is they are a bargain spinoff of Asus.

Hearing mixed reviews on the AGP on that board. Enough to make me hesitate. Alot say AGP is great with no problems, some couldnt get their AGP to work.

[Gravis]

been using asrock for awhile on my wife's comp and agp has run fine

only a geforce 5200 in it though

[Ash2Dust]

The higher end AGP cards 6800GT, etc seems to be hit or miss for this motherboard from what I read.

Keeping a high end AGP card for another year or 2 would be the only real reason to get an AGP MB at this point (gaming perspective).

Games tend to start bottlenecking on the GPU at 1024x768 and especially higher resolutions. Faster CPU's wont help as much .Thus, at this point, to increase FPS people need to look at getting better video cards. If you going to do that be very wary of buying an AGP vid.

The A64, X2, and the Intel Duo motherboard choices are rapidly shrinking to very few for AGP owners. Asrock may have found a niche with their AGP solutions with these CPUs and keeping DDR.

With a 3800+ X2 CPU running $150 and the Asrocks MB $70 thats a tempting upgrade for someone like myself with an AGP 6800GT who doesnt want to throw that card away yet. I would guess I would see about a 20% increase in perfomance over my 3200+ without even overclocking.

If I had a lesser video card, then I would look at going PCIe for future upgradability and playing future games decently. It all depends what you currently have CPU and video wise.

Heres a link for seeing how various processors compare with a pair of ATI Radeon X1900 XT CrossFires (less GPU bottleneck).
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... i=2747&p=3

And medium range video cards with the same CPU.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2746&p=7

Future games will be as demanding as Oblivion IMO.

[Dax_inside]

i dont know alot about my mobo but i know my X850XT AGP works very well on it.

[Ash2Dust]

With Asrocks AGP/PCIe. I've seen people say no problems with high end cards, I seen others say they had to drop to 4x, I've seen others say it was no go. I see some people say they ended up buying a new video card anyways a couple months later to get the boost they were hoping for and in hindsight would have gone PCIe. Very popular board, 979 buyer feedbackson Newegg. Side note Nvidia bought ULi and controls how much long that chip is made. The cut off their own AGP chip (NF3) supply awhile back.

Basically AGP still works. Alot of us are still using it but feel the strain when we go above medium settings.

If you are planning on buying AGP and using it for a long time, upgrading MB (and CPU) in the future is very limited. Hopefully Asrocks will keep the door open.

[Ash2Dust]

Another article the Asrock Intel version comparing AGP and PCIe performance. They had no problem with 6800Ultra (tho they do say this is the ver2 of this board). Also shows the performance drop off after the 1024 video bottleneck.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2814&p=1

[CrazyAce4200]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130033

I would buy this one before I would buy a 7800 GTX. I own a 7800 GTX and you will get the same performace if not better out of the 7900 GT. It is at your top of budget but it is well worth it. Another option is if you want to save a few bucks go with the 7600 GT it runs good also.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130017


I have never been a ati fan because I hate their drivers they release.