PCI express, agp and new mobos & v cards

[Heatseeker 0]

Soo? I still think me 2.4 p4 and mobo are quite suficient for the next year or more though ill problably upgrade to 1024 of memory but i dont know what to replace my old graphics card with .

Now i definetly need a graphics card replacement but i will throw it in the bin by the time i decide to replace my mobo and cpu to the new stuff that is coming by the end of the year. Will agp become obsolete in the near future? I thought skipping the 5th generation of nvidias was a good move has they werent much of a great improvement over gf4 but now what should i do? What card would you put on a ASUSP4, 533FSB, AGP4 plus P4 2.4 combo? Why? How long would this system handle recent and future games?

Would i be throwing money in the trash if i bought a 6th gen. nvidia agp card? Would it be wise to wait until i replace my mb and cpu to the new stuff with PCI express interface?

Bah, hardware technology evolutes alot faster than software does and OPF2 is still 2 years away but Doom3 is out and HL2 is on its way so... .

My hardware knowledge is very limited and so is my hw budget so a honest opinion from some of you out there could be very helpfull .

[mr burns 132]

What card would you put on a ASUSP4, 533FSB, AGP4 plus P4 2.4 combo? Why? How long would this system handle recent and future games?

imho an ati 9700pro would be perfect because they still have enough juice to play newer games well/perfect.

you could also go for the 9800´s but they aren´t as cheap as any used 9700 and they only have slighlty more power (variying from 1000-2000 pts. in madonion/01 & 03), also in most cases you can unlock your card and convert it to pro or 9800 niveau.

i just replaced my own rad 9600pro ez with a way older 9500 (softmodded to 9700) which runs twice as fast

if you have lots of money and you don´t care wasting it go for the newest nvidia or ati products, youre on the safe side with this stuff when it comes to performance...

but they will be outdated as soon as pci express arrives, and that would bite me regarding the 400-500 bucks i´spent for it

[Billabong81 0]

Well, I have a 2.53Ghz P4, 512 DDR RAM, and recently grabbed a FX5500 256mb Overclocked. I can run Doom 3 on high details & 1024x768 resolution w/ little-no lag .

I suggest getting a FX5500-5950 (anywhere in there) or the ATI equivelants. As Mr. Burns said, if you got the money, grab a ATI X800 XT/Nvidia 6800 Ultra .

As for PCI Express, I don't know much about that, sorry mate.

[Heatseeker 0]

Thank you for your reply Mr. Burns, i dont have lotsa money to spend on the latest gen. stuff without good reason but i have some doubts my specs would keep up and take advantage of those anyway, and for such an investment it would have to be for something that wouldnt become useless or obsolete in short period of time.

I also have more simpathy for nvidia products for better compatbility and driver support though i dont think the 5th gen. FX cards are all that great.

I have no clue on what to replace my old card with ...

edit:

Quote[/b] ] grab a ATI X800 XT/Nvidia 6800 Ultra.

As for PCI Express, I don't know much about that, sorry mate.

Thats pretty much what the thread is all about, PCI express is suposed to replace AGP graphics card slot interface and promises to take much more advantage of future graphics cards power and features and will become the standard interface for all new mobos in the very near future making agp cards obsolete, now i wouldnt like to buy a 300/400 € card just to throw it away next time i upgrade my mobo/cpu but i wouldnt like to throw money on a not so great FX card either .

Upgrading card, mobo, cpu, ram, etc is out of the question obviously...

[Zombie_Mod 0]

I run a Radeon 9700 pro and it works like a treat.

No matter how fast your graphics card is, if your memory and processor aren't up to scratch, you won't ever see top performance.

You really need a 3Ghz+ CPU with decent RAM to get good performance out of the latest cards - after all, it's the CPU that's calculating positions of vertices etc.

They are selling Radeon 9700 pros really cheap at www.overclockers.co.uk .

I have the money to buy an X800, but for what? Bragging rights? Makes no sense to me

[Heatseeker 0]

I have the money to buy an X800, but for what? Bragging rights? Makes no sense to me

I have to partialy disagree, my current ti4200 was first bought for an old P3800mhz and the guy at the shop said the cpu couldnt take much advantage of the card but i noticed much improvement over my old GF2 and considering the card later jumped to my current rig it was definetly a good investment .

But i fear that now with the gfx card slot interface replacement things are more complicated and a new card purchase must be wisely chosen, thats why i opened this thread, hopefully it will also become informative to other comunity members who are considering a gfx card upgrade .

[Zombie_Mod 0]

I have the money to buy an X800, but for what? Bragging rights? Makes no sense to me

I have to partialy disagree, my current ti4200 was first bought for an old P3800mhz and the guy at the shop said the cpu couldnt take much advantage of the card but i noticed much improvement over my old GF2 and considering the card later jumped to my current rig it was definetly a good investment .

But i fear that now with the gfx card slot interface replacement things are more complicated and a new card purchase must be wisely chosen, thats why i opened this thread, hopefully it will also become informative to other comunity members who are considering a gfx card upgrade .

Oh don't get me wrong, you will notice a performance improvement with a new card, but you definitely won't get the most out of it unless you upgrade your CPU too.

No point in a graphics card being able to do 5 billion triangles per second if you can't get the vertex information from main memory that fast, is there

I would say buy the best card you can afford. You can upgrade the CPU later.

[Milkman 1]

For your vid card, there are certain "over clockable" 9200SE's that can get 9800 pro performance. I don't know much about them but they might be a cheaper alternative.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

If you don't want to waste too much money, I would take a look at either a Geforce FX 5900XT or a Geforce 6800LE. (or whatever ATI builds in that price class)

If you have luck, you can use a tool called rivatuner on the 6800LE, reactivate some pipelines and make a GT/ULTRA... a faster one out of it.

MfG Lee

[S_Z 0]

I would recommend a 9800P if you don't want to get one of the more expensive cards from the new generation. I would stay away from the FX series (5x00) since they have very poor Pixel Shader 2.0 performence that most new games take advantage of.

[shinRaiden 0]

The numbers I've seen on the various review sites suggest that the 6600series vs. the x600's is the market to look at. If you aim at the 6800's and x800's, you'll get top performance, but the 6's should give most of that performance at a lot less price.

PCI-X is just starting to hit the consumer market, I suppose the lack of prescence is partially do to the ATX -> BTX transition. It doesn't make sense to do all the work to put in PCI-X on an old board (whole new chipset etc) only to dump it when the BTX mobo's start shipping. I expect that when BTX boards start shipping we'll see a lot more PCI-X capable boards.

PCI-X has three big reasons to beat AGP. Number one, the architecture allows for a lot more electrical power than can go into an AGP slot. That's why early video cards now can drop the aux. molex on the PCI-X versions. Secondly, the rerouting on the BTX boards should allow for larger traces to support more wattage.

2. PCI-X bandwidth starts where AGP is now red-lining. Future revisions will only get bigger and faster.

3. You can have more than one PCI-X slot in your computer. Thus you can have more than one non-wimpy video card in your computer. Nvidia brought back the bad old SLI interconnects, and is even offering them for the 6600's.

[Heatseeker 0]

I will check around for prices on the 6600's, i assume a AGP card will still be a good investment then, has i still think my 2.4 has more than enough juice to run 2005 best releases.

Not the best times to upgrade HW is it? I wouldnt want to upgrade mobo+cpu at this time .

[mr burns 132]

Quote[/b] ]Not the best times to upgrade HW is it?

right, better wait till after x-mas, usually prices start to drop then.

btw:

Quote[/b] ]Thus you can have more than one non-wimpy video card in your computer. Nvidia brought back the bad old SLI interconnects, and is even offering them for the 6600's.

read about that too and i can´t wait to plug 2 bundled 6800´s into my rig  

[D34N 0]

Quote[/b] ]As Mr. Burns said, if you got the money, grab a ATI X800 XT/Nvidia 6800 Ultra

You will be able to fine an X800 XT at a "reasonable" prices ut there is no way you will find a X800 XTPE or 6800U at prices under $550.. and those are most likely not PCI-E either..

Quote[/b] ]No point in a graphics card being able to do 5 billion triangles per second if you can't get the vertex information from main memory that fast, is there

Just to simplfy I believe he meant "upwards of 550 million vertices"

Quote[/b] ]Oh don't get me wrong, you will notice a performance improvement with a new card, but you definitely won't get the most out of it unless you upgrade your CPU too.

He is right.. CPU makes a big difference..

Quote[/b] ]For your vid card, there are certain "over clockable" 9200SE's that can get 9800 pro performance. I don't know much about them but they might be a cheaper alternative.

LOL, I dont think so.. you do realise that "SE" means "castrated" dont you?, they come with on 64bit memory bandwidth and lower clockspeeds.. There is no way you could OC a Raddy 9200SE (be it 128MB or 64MB) to a Raddy 9500PRO.. even with an ES (Engineering Sample).

Quote[/b] ]If you don't want to waste too much money, I would take a look at either a Geforce FX 5900XT or a Geforce 6800LE. (or whatever ATI builds in that price class)

I havent seen the LE's (castrated 6800NU) review yet but I'm guessing its slightly slower than a 6600GT.. which is almost as fast as the 6800NU. Also please note 6800NU means 128MB version, 6800GT/Ultra are 256MB, although Asus has made a few overpriced 6800NU 256MB G-DDR3..

Please check out THG for a round up of 35 fairly recent Graphics cards.

Tom Hardware Guide GFX Cards.

Quote[/b] ]If you have luck, you can use a tool called rivatuner on the 6800LE, reactivate some pipelines and make a GT/ULTRA... a faster one out of it.

That is hit and miss and can depend on who made the graphics card.

Quote[/b] ]right, better wait till after x-mas, usually prices start to drop then.

I agree, but early spring(ish) ATi and Nvidia are expected to roll out their 512MB line.. Woe is us..

Quote[/b] ]

read about that too and i can´t wait to plug 2 bundled 6800´s into my rig

6800GT's I assume?, because there are no 6800NU PCI-E's, and getting 2 6800Ultras will cost at least $1100 plus the mobo... best wait for nForce4's.. although I'm not sure that they will have dual SLi(?)

Edit: typo.

[benu 1]

I am thinking about buying a new card too. From the "old" cards (gf fx and radeon 9600/9800) only the radeon 9800 pro seems to be worth buying if you compare power and price, costing around 180€. The 5900 is more expensive than the 9800 pro and does not pack as much punch. The 5900 xt has even less power and is equally priced than the 9800 pro. Too bad linux drivers for ati aren't too good still....

The question is if it wouldn't be better to wait for one of the newer models? GF 6600 does not seem to be that good a card, radeon x600 looks crappy too, but gf6600 gt looks nice for it's price, and maybe the x700 cards (when the agp version hits the market). Both seem to be around 250€, a litte more or less. But do they perform that much better than the radeon to be worth the additional cost?

Opinions?

Update: after some more searching it seems all three cards (9800pro, 6600gt and x700xt) cost about the same with the 6600gt being the fastest (not by much and not in all games compared to the x700xt) and the 9800pro being significantly slower than the other two. I guess that means i will buy a 6600gt... if no one else convinces me otherwise ;)