New Graphics Card

[sawyen]

Umm.. the guy's using an Intel 3.2Ghz Pentium 4..

What will an AMD 939 Asus A8N-E be any good to him?

Unless you can find a 478 capable board that will run 16xPCI-E, I fail to see how he will be able to transition to a PCI-E system will only £350 and wanting a capable graphics card.

[matthobson]

exactly my point.. should I do my proposed upgrade for now.. if so will it last 12 months or so, then go for a whole new pc then??

[badass]

From a person with similar specs and a similar dilemma (1GB, A64 3000+, AGP 9800 Pro 128MB)
I would recommend you do the same as I did.
Get 2GB of branded value RAM. made my machine much better for a few modern games
The X800 GTO is not a lot faster than the 9800 Pro fro most games - you will not notice the difference playing - only on benchmark prrgrams.
The X1600 Pro is slower (than the 9800 Pro) but supports more features.
That is the conclusion of my research.
Personally I'd wait a bit and see what's around the corner shelling out now will reduce upgrade options a couple of years from now. Wait a few months

[sawyen]

I woudnt even go near the X800s now as they are dire in features..

6800GS Golden Sample bit should be good, and I have heard that they're probably built using fully functional NV40 cores.. which means... TADA.. Rivatuner trip for 16pp and a nice walk into 400/1100 6800Ultra overclock park.

2GB will deffo help immensely, running 2 sticks of 1GB versus 4x512MB has negligible differences.. unless you bench that is.. and games show little to no difference (2-5fps at most).. just get whatever's cheaper (if ur fren offers you a dead on deal for 2x1G sticks then go for it.. or else another pair of 512MB would just be fine)

Just remember to get ur chip up to stratch, or else the 6800GS would be stretching shoulders in that aging system.. See if you can get it up till 3.5Ghz and all..

[Rohan]

Umm.. the guy's using an Intel 3.2Ghz Pentium 4..

What will an AMD 939 Asus A8N-E be any good to him?

Unless you can find a 478 capable board that will run 16xPCI-E, I fail to see how he will be able to transition to a PCI-E system will only £350 and wanting a capable graphics card.

I did mention this on the last page but I guess everyone missed it.

He could get the following for under £350:

Asus P4V800D-X SKT 478 - £28
Geforce 7900GT PCI-express - £200 or less
(2X1GB) Corsair Value Select, DDR PC3200 - £110

Total is £338, round it to £350 if you include delivery. He can keep his existing CPU and he has a much more capable system.

[Koolpc]

Yea, i would upgrade by getting a new Mobo, CPU and Graphics card. Be nice and will last a long time.

[MSIC]

I completely agree with Rohan (on the previous page).
If you want to spend a little now, get the 6800GS then wait until you can afford a serious upgrade.

[matthobson]

Right.. I was all set for the 6800GS, but then I looked at the Gainward website and am very confused. Everywhere I look I seem to get a different set of characteristics for what seems to be the same card.. I collated the table below for the cards I am interested in at the moment (along with my 9800XT at the top): http://ee.1asphost.com/matthobson/Table.jpg (apologies for the formatting)

The 6800GS is not the "Goes like hell" version as it is AGP not PCI-E, and so runs at 550MHZ memory speed (slower than my current 9800XT) so £160 seems like a lot just to get an extra 256MB and 8 extra pipes (aloong with shader 3.0 tech etc.)

Then I looked at overclockers as i was interested in the

Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GS SILENT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-030-GW) - First time i saw one with 20 pipes. - Will there be that much difference over the 16-pipes??
for £260.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...e_AGP_411.html

But here I can see

Gainward BLISS GeForce 6800 GS "Golden Sample" 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-031-GW

with 1.2GHZ Mem speed and only 12 pipes!??

So I am now very confused.. What should i be looking at here? What features are more important?

Should I go for a 256 MB card with faster clock speeds and more pipes, or is it worth going for the 7800 GS above?

NB as above I would like this card to perform in 1 year about the same as my 9800XT does now, if that is possible. My 9800XT has now lasted 2 years if that helps.

[chazt]

the 6800gs will most probably be 1.1GHz as the memory is DDR

[jamena]

there's a 7800 AGP in the for sale forum...

[MSIC]

The 6800GS has 12 pipes. The 6800 GT and Ultras have 16.
Don't worry too much about clock speed per se, between different generations you cant compare too easily (although i'm no gpu architechture wizard).

I would honestly advise you to get the cheapest 6800GS you can find, unless you find an agp 7800 cheap (ie under 150 quid would be a real bargain).
Personally I can only find 6800GS' for about 150 quid, although a few months ago i'm sure they were about 125.

As jamena says, there is a 7800 agp for sale here at hexus:
£185 and maybe you can haggle?