Upgrading my really old Video Card??

[dfgasner]

I have a Asus Mobo with just an AGP slot and I can't afford and have no need right now to upgrade to a pci-e mobo. My box is fairly fast with a
P4 2.6 HT
Asus p4p800 Mobo
512MB PC3200
80GB Baracudda SATA

Unfourtunatly I didn't upgrade my video card last time becasue I didn't need too.

I have an old GeForce4 MX420 64MB yea I know hahaha

But I'm now looking at buying a new video card and would like some imput on what to get.

I have a top $ of about $210 so im not looking at the top line i just want somthing that will get me another 1-2 years.

I've been looking at the DDR3's
6600GT 128MB
6800GT & Ultra's 256MB
All of the X800 Series 256MB

I really dont know which is the best choose becasue the 6600GT have faster core and mem speeds but the 6800GT has more ram. And I really don't know to much at all about the X800's (xt xl GT pro)

So if you could give me some input it would be helpful

Thanks

Davey

[dfgasner]

In advance sry about the double post I didn't see this Catagory til later and think it is more appropirate.

I have a Asus Mobo with just an AGP slot and I can't afford and have no need right now to upgrade to a pci-e mobo. My box is fairly fast with a
P4 2.6 HT
Asus p4p800 Mobo
512MB PC3200
80GB Baracudda SATA

Unfourtunatly I didn't upgrade my video card last time becasue I didn't need too.

I have an old GeForce4 MX420 64MB yea I know hahaha

But I'm now looking at buying a new video card and would like some imput on what to get.

I have a top $ of about $210 so im not looking at the top line i just want somthing that will get me another 1-2 years.

I've been looking at the DDR3's
6600GT 128MB
6800GT & Ultra's 256MB
All of the X800 Series 256MB

I really dont know which is the best choose becasue the 6600GT have faster core and mem speeds but the 6800GT has more ram. And I really don't know to much at all about the X800's (xt xl GT pro)

So if you could give me some input it would be helpful

Thanks

Davey

[hockey man]

If you are planning to upgrade that MOBO in the future, don't go to overboard. A 6600gt is a nice card. Mine lets me play anything I can throw at it. I'd then save the rest for when you upgrade your MOBO.

[dfgasner]

yea thanks

what kind of 6600gt do u have in ur box and what is ur cpu

what types of games are u throwing at it, with what setting for video

if u could let me know it would be very appirceated because i want to get this card before the rebate runs out

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=321917

or do u think that this card would go down in price before the end of november?? thx

thx
Davey

[hockey man]

Please don't double post. I responded to the one in "buying and Upgrading."

[hockey man]

I'm not sure what the prices will do. Anyway, I've thrown Halo at max, KOTOR II at max, Battle Field 1942 at max I believe, Joint Operations at max. I can also crank up flight simulator 2004 (don't laugh, with lots of AI traffic and advanced senery, it makes a lot of pcs crawl....). I have a 2.8 P4 with HT. 512 RAM. 915G Intel MOBO.

[saphalline]

Personally, I would buy it now. You'll get the rebate and you'll be able to enjoy your new vid card immediately. Waiting for prices to fall will just make you bite your nails down to the nub. ;)

[hockey man]

Good call, plus there is no guarante that the prices will come down.

[PrntRhd]

I merged your posts to avoid confusing things any further.

[i an not a nerd]

saphalline: Waiting for prices to fall will just make you bite your nails down to the nub.

Hehehe, thats what one of my friends did with a computer that he was building. He waited so long that by the time that he got the vid card, his whole computer was no longer top-of-the-line. (Intel prescott 2.2 ghz cpu, 512 mb ram, ati 9600 XT)

[dfgasner]

thanx a lot

I now have found two more choices

1. Gigabyte 6600gt 128MB TurboForce
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322273

2. Gigabyte x800 256MB TurboForce
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322286

I understand that they are both agp cards but one is like $10 more for 256 mb.
the only reason right now btw these 2 that would make me get the 6600gt is the fact that it has VIVO, but btw these cards which is going to shell out the best lasting performance??


what are ur opinions btw the 6600gt and the x800??

Thanks
Davey

[saphalline]

Well, geez, if the price difference is only $10 then it's a no-brainer! Get the X800!

It's kind of funny, though, how the AGP versions of the 6600 GT are so much more expensive than the PCIe versions. And the AGP versions have slower RAM to boot. Very strange...

[DigitalJ]

ATI single cards are almost always cheaper than Nvidia cards...and they usually perform better as well. I would go with Saph's recomendations. The x800 is going to outperform the 6600gt by a bout 1000 points on 3DMark05 anyway...for that matter, it'll probably outperform a 6800GT in most categories. No brainer there, dude.

Though if it were me, I'd shell out $32 extra instead of $12 and get this:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324540

But that's really because I'm anal and couldn't handle running a gigabyte vid card on an asus mobo. Though I immagine there might be some benefit from runing a combination manufactured by the same company.

[saphalline]

ATI single cards are almost always cheaper than Nvidia cards...and they usually perform better as well.That's true right now, but it's not always true. Many many generations of vid cards have I seen (Yoda-speak :p) and ATI being on top historically doesn't happen a lot. And ATI doesn't have the top-end right now. We'll see how R520 stacks up once it's released, though (should be soon!).

Woops... check that link again. That Asus vid card is nice and all, but we're looking at AGP options right now, not PCIe. That's for the next upgrade cycle. :D

[dfgasner]

yea i think thats what i'm going to do is just wait another month and get the x800 and see how cheap it gets. Thanks a lot for all your input it was a great help.

Thanks a lot!!
Davey

[i an not a nerd]

Actually, the x800 series should probly drop in price with the x1300 series coming around the corner (6 days left i believe).

Unfortuantly ATI is not releasing any AGP versions of the x1600 and x1800 cards.

[dfgasner]

Yea thanks a lot. That's what I was hoping was that it would fall in price once the new radeon's come out. I just hope that it's not just the pci-e's that fall and that also the agp's will to.

Thanks again for all your help it was great.

Davey

[dfgasner]

Another quick question.

I believe you that the x800 well be better then the 6600gt and all the reviews show that but I'm confused on why.

the 6600gt even though it only has 128MB it has a core speed of 500 and a mem speed of 1000.

the x800 on the other hand while having 256MB it only has a core speed of 400 and mem speed of 600.

I always thought that the faster the gpu and mem the better the card.
does the 256MB really outweigh the 128MB that much to upset it .

This is just for personal knoweledge Thanks

Davey

[saphalline]

Ok, this goes back to the thread on "scoring vid cards (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=39536)" in terms of performance being affected by several factors.

In short, the X800 has 50% more pipelines and twice the RAM bus width. If we score these vid cards, we have:

6600 GT
500MHz core
8 pipelines
4000 core points
1000MHz RAM
128-bit bus width
16.0 GB/s RAM bandwidth

X800
400MHz core
12 pipelines
4800 core points
600MHz RAM
256-bit bus width
19.2 GB/s RAM bandwidth

As you can see, there are many many more numbers and specs about vid cards than just speed. Same with CPU's - speed isn't everything.

[dfgasner]

Thanks a lot there is a x800 pro going off ebay in 1 hour and i dont know if i should get it or not but i'll look at it

it is like 210 with shipping right now

thanks a lot it has been very helpful