Yet Another Graphics Card post

I am looking to buy a new graphics card to replace my current ATI Radeon 9200. After searching this forum and google I made several observations, it seems nvidia is more popular, possibly beter preformance, and that the newest technology PCIX is possibly the way to go to keep up with things. My mobo has only AGP and PCI so I think without buying a new mobo my best choice is a AGP card. But I also read that you need to make sure the card will be suported by the mobo, how would I find that out.

What I plan on doing with the card is 3D modleing and 3D gameing. My 3D modleing program blender has poor preformance with ATI cards. I wanted to know weather anyone hear could tell me what card you own, and what you think about it. Im prity sure nvidia would be what I need. I am compareing two cards of nvidia at the moment, one on sale and possibly out of stock I have to check

BFG Tech GeForce MX 4000, 128MB AGP Graphics Card
BFG Tech GeForce FX 5700LE OC, 256MB AGP Graphics Card

what do you think to the top one, since I only need to be able to play my games and make my 3D modles without any slowness. How would I even find out weather either one of these cards would work with my old Biostar M6VCF socket 370 currently worth about 40 dollars.

IMHO ATI drivers are unstable

Some of our graphics design applications cannot use MX technologies

I suggest contacting the software vendor and seeing what they recommend

MLF

Hi Sposes old chap, sorry to have to say this but your question is wrong way round. It is the way you might look at things if you were building a new box, but you are obviously wanting to upgrade existing kit.

The secret with that is BALANCE there is absolutely no point in putting a super dooper video card in a mediocre box, it is just a waste of money, as all the components have to support and complement one another.

Your motherboard has an FSB of 133Mhz and supports PC133 SDR RAM, both of which are on the old and slow side by today's standards. From your profile I get:

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Your Current Box Celeron 1GHz W/ 256MB RAM

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And you are running Windows XP on that? :eek: AND TRYING TO RUN GAMES AND GRAPHICAL MODELLING

1. You need a complete new computer.

2. To improve that which you have, the most obvious (and value for money) move is to increase your RAM. Windows XP runs pretty leisurely with 256Mb, it really isn't enough for anything other than very basic office-type functions.

I would personally want no less than 512Mb in an XP box and preferably 1Gb.

How many RAM slots have you, and how many are occupied?

Cheers :)

I have 4 slots total and useing 2. So you realy think a new mobo and cpu is what my focus should be right now? If I do say get a asus mobo or something and slap 512 in it with maybe a 2GHz, useing my current ATI 9200 do you think id get more preformance out of the card? or sould I also need a new card.

Edit: I thought I remembered seeing 4 RAM slots but when i see my board on the site, it obviousely only has 3, wow my board is old.

You would undoubtably see a better across the board improvement in performance from upgrading your CPU/motherboard, since this will speed up all parts of your computing system, rather than just in the graphics area. As far as the ATI vs Nvidia thing goes, to me it always seems more like a religious argument than anything, the cards are pretty comparable and its hard to go wrong with either (although I would have to agree that ATIs drivers have been at times lacking), but I will encourage you to do your homework on the card.

Really good example:
(from tom's hardware):

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Card Chipset Onboard Memory DirectX Generation Chipclock Memory clock Buswidth Pipelines

Radeon X800 XT PE R423 256MB DX 9.0b 520 1120 256 bit 16
Radeon X800 XT R423 256MB DX 9.0b 500 1000 256 bit 16
Radeon X800 Pro R423 256MB DX 9.0b 475 900 256 bit 12
Radeon X800 XL R430 512MB DX 9.0b 400 1000 256 bit 16
Radeon X800 XL R430 256MB DX 9.0b 400 1000 256 bit 16
Radeon X800 R430 256MB DX 9.0b 390 700 256 bit 12

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You'll notice they are all ATI Radeon X800 cards...however, the CPU varies from 390 to 520 Mhz, the memory from 700 to 1120 Mhz and the pipelines vary from 12 to 16. Another thing to keep in mind is that just because the number is higher does NOT mean the performance is better, I strongly recommend you look at sites like Toms Hardware to compare performance. I think you will be able to find a decently priced card that has the right balance of price and performance.

As far as the card selection itself goes, I would say if you are going to drop the dough on a card, go PCI-E since its the way things are going. And I would disagree with the above poster, if you can get a kick ass card that works in your system (in this case pci-e won't), then when you upgrade your system later you won't need a new card and you can add some life to an older system by offloading more onto the newer card.

I think you would get more bang for the buck with a cpu/memory/mb upgrade, but don't forget about other things like the power supply (the newer mbs have a different supply than a few years ago)...

I'll have to side with nihil on this one. You have a video card that will out-perform your m/b. You have a bottleneck as far as your RAM and your CPU are concerned. I'd seriously consider heading over to www.pricewatch.com to do some shopping for both a m/b and RAM. Give the socket 939 AMD products a look as they offer a longer upgrade curve ( they accept both single and dual core CPUs ) than Intel does at present. PCIe is really going to be great but AGP will give you acceptable performance for the next 6 to 12 months.

OK, please take a look here:

http://www.memoryx.net/bim6mome32.html

If it is a Biostar M6VCF it only has THREE memory slots, supports 256Mb strips for a maximum of 768Mb.

My view would be along these lines:

1. new motherboard.
2. new processor
3. new memory
4. New power supply unit.
5. I would guess the hard drive only spins at 5400RPM? so I would want a new on of those.
6. new video card

You can probably re-use the CD drive and certainly the floppy and the case :D but they cost nothing these days, compared to the rest of the components.

Let's face it, you need a whole new box.

You currently have two 128Mb strips I would suggest that you add another 256Mb which will take you up to 512Mb, so you should get a marked performance improvement. That is about the best you can do with what you have, in my opinion.

Cheers

:)

Alrighty so I have decided that ill buy new mobo, cpu and ram and see if the card upgrade is nessisary, since it soulds like I might not be getting all the preformance my card has to offer.

Ive just spent a hour looking at motherboards and found a referbished KVM266PM-U Motherboard With AMD XP2200 CPU for $100 and some change

http://www.factorydirect.ca/catalog/...p?pcode=MA2200
http://www.clickonit.com/Motherboard...ron/195290.php

I notice it has the AGP but not the PCIe or PCIX. What would be your opinions?

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Ive just spent a hour looking at motherboards and found a referbished KVM266PM-U Motherboard With AMD XP2200 CPU for $100 and some change

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I notice it has the AGP but not the PCIe or PCIX. What would be your opinions?

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Well, the technology is much more modern than that which you have, but the PCIe/PCIX technology is something for your next machine :)

Please remember that you will need adequate RAM (it will support single channel DDR, and I would guess PC2700, but please check) and you really need to look at the power supply, as I doubt if it will be adequate, and if it fails it could take the MoBo RAM and processor with it.

Also, you should have a 7200 RPM hard drive as your "C"............you could use the old one for storage/backup/infrequent applications? Unless, of course, your current one is 7200. Otherwise you will create a bottleneck.

I am sure that your overall performance will be much better, and the video card will deliver its full potential, which it cannot be doing at the moment.

It is hard to determine what the best advice is, but over here I would replace the video card with one much less powerful (32Mb PCI?) leave the memory, replace WinXP with Win98SE. Stick a 15" monitor and a standard keyboard and mouse on it, and sell it for about CAN $200. Then spend the money on my "new box" :D

Good luck!

The Hard drive is 7200 40GB, the power suply is Form ATX, the power output I will have to check. The case suports ATX and ATX mini, I have 1 DVD ROM, 1 CD RW, 1 FDD and of cource the HDD. I was just reading about socket types and CPU's and learned that 478 suports Celeron D and Pent 4, and Socket A suports AMD Athlon XP. Is going with an Intel chip or an AMD chip another one of these great religious debaits? Just saw the board I was looking at has one left but another local retailer has much more mobo/CPU combos available. Seems for the budget, $150 does not buy me the PCI express, but does get me AGP 8x.

Ive also been eyeing the eyecandy over at alienware.com but unfortunately I will need to find a job before I get one of those babies so I was thinking either a Socket 478 or socket A, but seems the Socket A is rather limiting as it suports only AMD? I have alot of homework to do before I buy, Im prity far behind in the hardware scene.

What about this mobo?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...M-7VT600P-3000

Should give me beter preformance then im curently getting?

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but seems the Socket A is rather limiting as it suports only AMD?

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And socket 478 is rather limiting as it only supports Intel (and possibly Cyrix, if they are still around?) :D

Intel = Celeron and Pentium (Socket 478)
AMD = Duron and Athlon (Socket A)

OK they make others, but those are what we are comparing here.

I would go for the Gigabyte deal. I have used their boards for some time with no problems. I must admit that I prefer their boards with dual BIOS and RAID array support, but that is for small business and professional type deployments. The documentation is pretty good as well.

OK, you can stick with the existing hard drive from a speed viewpoint.
Intel v's AMD.................I will use either.
AGP 8X is all you will need, as I said...............for the next machine........

Yes, do check the power, you should be looking for 350W on a machine of your age. With a newer box I would want 400W, but the old ones seem to be better made (damn shame that does not apply to me?) :D

nebulus200 suggested that you do some reading over at www.tomshardware.com and I must say I agree. I'm still suggesting AMD socket 939 as it has the longest upgrade curve and will give you the most bang for your buck. I'll also caution you against the refurb route if possible. Pricewatch (I linked it in my other post) is FULL of great bargains and I'm sure you'll find something there that fits your needs.

If you go the 939 Socket route, may I suggest the Asus A8N-E:
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...e/overview.htm

I bought the A8V-E a few months ago with the KT800 chipset and was mostly happy with it; however, this one has the Nvidia Nforce 4 chipset and would be what I would buy in a heartbeat...It also supports Pci-e and has built in SATA controllers that can support either straight SATA or in a RAID configuration. I wasn't happy with the builtin sound with that A8V-E and wound up buying a Creative Audigy 2 ZSGamer sound card to replace it (since I was having pauses when playing games with the KT800) to get around this; however, if I hadn't already bought the soundcard, I would be ordered the A8N-E as I type :)

If you go the AMD 64 route (which I recommend), I would recommend the 4000. It has come down in price about 250 US since I bought it, but the key is its the first chip (non-FX) that has a 1M L2 Cache and is currently selling for about 450 US, not a bad deal at all. You will also be able to run PC3200 DDR, which as far as memory goes, is relatively cheap. When I built my system, I used the Antec NEOPower 480 (http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=24480) as my power supply and am pretty happy with it. I rounded it out with the ATI X800 XT Pro graphics card because it had the right balance of graphics pipelines, memory/cpu speed, and price (still expensive though). Also agree with the previous poster, if you can afford a newer HD, its well worth it (I got a 10000 RPM SATA drive for my Windows partition and anything else I wanted to run fast)....


Last but not least, you have to do your homework. You have to decide how much you have to spend and what kind of performance you want. If you go the el cheapo route, you'll have a working computer that may not be adequate in a few months. If you go the uber expensive route, you'll have a machine that will last a while but will also break the bank. There is a happy balance in there somewhere and with the right reading, you'll find it...and get a PC that will last a while and not break the bank.

I would like to extend my thanks to everyone for opening my eyes and bringing back into the future. I was stuck in a time warp and now I am in the process of doing alot of research so that I get what I need and something that will last me a while. I have been reading tomshardware and various other sites to get me up to speed with the current technologies.

So far I have learned about memory, currently being DDR preferably dual chanel. FSB which was complete news to me, Serial ATA and the new PCIe technologies. I will have much more homerwork to do before I make my purchase but this is a great start. Many thanks.


Considering this computer was a gift, it has done me well but my interests and needs have changed.

If you're doing 3D rendering and any type of graphical work, ATI's FireGL cards should do the trick. They're workstation graphics cards. As far as gaming goes, they're not much of a gaming card :) but what games are you planning on runnin on this thing anyways? ATI will be comeing with their CrossFire cards soon, and they're currently talking it over with MOBO mfg to figure out an OEM deal. I think either Gigabyte or MSI have agreed to some deal but i'm not positive. Crossfire btw is their SLI version. All X800 and X850 cards are supposed to be compatible with it and the benefit is that you only need 1 crossfire card and one of their x800 or x850 cards (x800XL pciX - $299).

From what i've seen, spending some extra money on your MOBO and Processor now will save you more money down the road because they'll be more upgradeable...I.E. Value mobos and CPUs are not always the best idea. A socket 939 or socket 775 Mobo should be more in the lines of what you should be looking for. ABIT has some very reliable/stable MOBOs, and if you're planning on going with a socket 478 board, look into their IC-7G Mobo.

Consider going into MOBOs which allow a significant RAM upgrade because RAM is the cheapest/ most effective way to upgrade your computer. Doubling your RAM usually gives you a noticable performance increase.

If you're tight on cash, consider picking up a fully built machine which sometimes can cost less but doesn't give you the flexibility you want as far as upgrades go.

Good Luck

That mobo is pretty good, normally I'd say try for 800mhz fsb... But that would mean more money...

You get that, some more sticks of ram and a PSU like this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...544429&CatId=0

And your looking at spending no more then $250 on this upgrade... Not bad and i'm positive you'll be happy with the increase performance performance. I don't think you'll need a new vid card, but if you do then there are alot of good vid cards for under 200 bucks now, like the 9800 pro and nvidia 6600gt. I got the 6600gt and have been very happy with it. If I were you I would go with nvidia over ATI at this point, I'v heard some whacky things about ATI's drivers...

Everyone is saying look towards the future and buy PCIe etc... If you have the money I agree with them, but you say you do not so I say this is a cheaper alternative, it won't last you as long, but it will do you good for now...

All and all you should be happy with that board :D

The latest update:

I have been doing some reading, well ok alot of reading and have a prity clear what board im gona buy. Firstly I had made quite a mistake by looking at US dolars and not realizeing it, turns out tigerdirect.ca gives me the canadian prices, oh well live and learn. Ive been reading over at tomshardware, pricewatch and other sites as well.

First id like to mention I found a site that compared my video card with others on the Mark3D scores and ive been getting a score of 512 :| while others with the same card are getting 3000 so your right definately my card was not ment for my system.

For the socket I like to get a more upgradable one like 939 or the 755 as sugested but the budget dont fit. Socket 478 seems to fit my budget more and some of the Socket A amd boards, so I think this is what im gona buy.

Since with pcie it seems I would need to buy a new vid card, and more money, ill stick with the pci 2.x and agp 8x. The boards I am looking at have the new sata so this should alow me to get one of the faster hard drives when I decide to, ive decided the board I choose will have at least two sata connectors. Ive been looking at FSB of either 400MHz or 800MHz and RAM of either DDR 333 or 400, a few boards seem to have dual channel. Looking at either AMD XP Athelon or the Celeron D 2.8, I think this will give me a system that will suit my needs and my budget.

After calucations of Mobo/RAM/CPU it seems im looking at 280 CDN after taxes aprox. Ive saved so far 139 so I have a little ways to go. When I have the cash and make my final purchase Ill let everyone know how it all works. It has been educational.

P.S. anyone have a CPU with the Intel Hyperthreading and what do you think of this tech? Also is AMD'S 3D Now something worth considering in my final choice?

These are weary times for investing in video cards/ boards/sockets/CPU's.... the latest games will be making the jump to light speed in a few here.

I bought my final s-478 board and it is robust for the money. Abit IC7-G i875P Though I was a little disappointed in some minute things, (timings etc... that only a OC'er would care about. I had beef with the EE's on staff). This is a good board for a gamer, look where its chipset rates. http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/index.htm Chipset Intel 875P that's not in the value desktop market. It's halfway up the main list. Rule of thumb get dual-channel.

For the money here's a good little card. (like I said above this card will not play good for long, these are weary times) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102286

I greatly apreciate that link, untill now ive only been searching google for the chipset and reading about it individualy, but this gives me a chance to look at all chipsets and particulary what category the fall, thanks.

What types of games are you refering to? Fortunately I am not a hard core gamer, im an ocasional gamer. The types of games ive been playing are games like

ChessMaster 10th ED
Delta Force BHD Team Sabre
Sim City 4
Need For Speed
CSI
Myst Games.

I dont have any need for games like Doom3, Quake or FarCry.

CSI Miami runs rather slow out of the package but after a few tweaks in particulary game settings set low for everything solved the problem. Need For Speed UG 2 runs very slow on my computer but NFS UG 1 is just fine for my needs. I dont buy games often, because of my budget and because I do alot of other things that ocupy my time.

My main concern is that the system will run my current games without any choppyness, and any games I might buy. Also the 3D Modleing and rendering is very big for me right now as I am learning I might actualy have a hidden skill thats been waiting to be let out into the open.

I think the boards ive been looking at and the sugestions of others will suit my needs for at least a few years. Of cource I am still saveing.

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Originally posted here by sposes
I greatly apreciate that link, untill now ive only been searching google for the chipset and reading about it individualy, but this gives me a chance to look at all chipsets and particulary what category the fall, thanks.

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Anyone with basic computer knowledge and common sense should use these resources before shopping.

Processor Spec Finder
http://processorfinder.intel.com/scr....asp?CHRID=483

This is critical for finding a chips stepping. Most vendors don't post this info because they need to sell out the old first.

Example: Prescott

• C0
• D0
• E0

Of course you would want the E0 because they've worked a lot of the kinks out.

Intel® Pentium® 4 3EGHz E = Prescott

• E = Prescott
• C= Northwood
• =Celeron

( I don't buy Celeron, so you'll see it when the numbers are in the search field.)

I wait until every fiscal quarter to make my decisions. Intel drops prices every quarter or every three months. Let the cores mature and the prices drop, this is the smartest thing to do. Patience isv a virtue.

Ebay will have great deals on older chips. Email the seller and get them to give the laser cut code on the internal heat sink (IHS). So that you can verify it etc, etc... You can find CPUs there for cheap.

I've skipped over the meat of this post and I have a few opinions and advice to bestow upon the. No offense, but if you manage to get 40 bones for a Biostar M6VCF socket 370 I'll pay homage. I'm thinking $3-5 free shipping.

• Strictly for 3d-work (In order)
  
• SGI
• Intel(not boards)
• AMD
  
  I suggest you head over to Ebay and browse for SGI (SILICON GRAPHICS) components, then you can run a TCSEC B1 trusted operating system -- Trusted IRIX. This should run on any of the R10k and R12k systems. This should protect your artwork.
  
  
• Strictly for gaming
  
• AMD(cheaper stock)
• Intel(cheaper overclocked thus better IMHO)
  
  AMD is the cheapest route here and before any AMD fan boys start getting aroused let me state that Intel can hold its own in gamming. Any AMD fan boys want to take the Pepsi challenge on Intel multitasking capabilities, stability and video encoding? You better come heavy, I mean with some tri-head pr0mmy results. ( I prefer having what's best, even if it means a couple invisible FPS less in a game.) Intel systems are the king of video encoding. With gamming as long as you have a good card you'll be fine.
  
• On the topic of chipsets
  
  Intel chipsets are very reliable and stable. When AMD stops playing, I'll start buying from then again. Friends don't let friend buy SIS or VIA chipsets. Intel systems are the video encoding king
  
  I'll say this at the price of being redundant. Most important tool in gaming is the vid card. You can have an old CPU,PSU,Board,RAM and a good card and realistically still play, as long as you are a little above the sys requirements. You can have a 3.4CPU,Dual-channel mobo, DDR RAM and a ghetto GeForce4 and will not be able to realistically play new games (if at all).
  
  In your case if your 3d-art were for a future professional route and not just for hobby time, I'd seriously recommend moving to the socket LGA775 6XX series CPU with 2M caches for video work. This will have you going for a few years. Plus a 4-gig overclock is fairly easy with an all right board and cooling.
  
  
• On the topic of Tom's hardware
  
  Most everyone in the know in the OCing realm has lost their faith in that site over the years. Me over the last three or so years. Seriously, we take those reviews with a grain of salt, maybe a few time to time. They have seriously had some questionable reviews and it is my belief as well as others that corporate--PR kickbacks are involved with the fudging of numbers and fuzzy math. As the true limits of the hardware were pushed and the resultants were revealed, the faith in the site has deteriorated over time. But they have a great spot on Google. Still they are a good source on info but Anandtech is more trustworthy. lol For P-1 overclocking information eons ago Tom's was the place.
  
  http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/19970102/index-07.html
  
  
• On the topic of Nvidia/ATi
  
  Be on the lookout for Nvidia in a few here.
  

And another site that is a must have http://users.erols.com/chare/main.htm
(i'll fix any mistakes later)

Oh dear!

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and before any AMD fan boys start getting aroused let me state that Intel can hold its own in gamming

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!mitationRust old chap, I hope you don't mind me pointing out that over here, "gamming" has a somewhat different meaning............with "oral" connotations :D

Mind you, I do recall having to send an American lady colleague the front cover of a packet of "faggots"...............over here they are meatballs in a rich, dark, onion gravy ;)

On a serious note, I thought you gave a nice, succinct analysis.

I still say that for the current kit, an extra 256Mb of RAM is the best you can do. Then plan for the next box following the advice posted already.

:D

I heard them girlies in the UK can fix a mean, warm cup o' joe lol


He/she needs to save up and make that big jump to a new socket and start from scratch IMHO.........at the same time, Ebay and sites are full of refurbs and second hand great stuff. I've sold around 90 things on Ebay, all computer related.............for cheap too! For regular computing this is the time to buy socket478 CPUs /AMDs all with their late steppings and reap all the other benefits to waiting. They are very stable and reliable overclocked; it’s just that game play is expensive to keep up with, so it really sucks for the kids with low budgets. Me I go through boards and chips like crazy, I like to buy the new and sell for 20-30-40% percent off on Ebay. If you do this you can stay on the edge, not cutting edge but on that wave of good hardware for fairly cheap if you think about it.