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Hello all, im asking for some help with what card to buy. I currently have a geforce4 and need to upgrade but dont know whether it would be better to buy a 7600gt for my agp motherboard or upgrage my motherboard to pci-express and get a 7600gt pci-express version.
any suggestions would be helpful
thanks for your time
Well a PCI-E motherboard is more future proof so I say get the PCI-E motherboard and get the 7600gt PCI-E version.
Is your P4 Socket 775 or 478?
If the latter, I'd be tempted to say stick with the AGP card.
No point trying to "future-proof" your motherboard, if you're tied to an ageing chipset and socket.
On the other hand, if it's S775, then it may be worth getting one of the ASrock-type boards and having a go on one of those.
I think its a 478 socket, in which case would you recommend 7600gt agp?
I would be tempted to yes...if they're similarly priced and spec'd. The main thing to bear in mind would be to not buy a new motherboard, with the happy thought you'll be future-proofing. There's nothing wrong with PCIe boards, but it may turn out to be a waste of money if your current board has everything you need, and is stable, and you then have to buy a new board if you upgrade to Core 2 Duo or something similar at a later date.
Of course, if your current board doesn't have something you'd like, such as SATA etc, it unstable (or has leaky capacitors etc) then it may be worth buying a new board, but otherwise, IIWY, I probably wouldn't bother :).
HTH
If you're spend is <£100 on the gfx, then you're probably OK with AGP. If you are looking to upgrade to the latest, then PCI-E is the only way forward.
By the time your upgrading again, if you stick to your current rate, anything you buy now will need updating anyway - motherboard, ram, gfx, memory. Save up for next time instead.
Having said that, you could get an P-D 805 dual core and the AGP/PCI-E board from ASRock which supports conroe for ~£100, 1G memory for £60, and then your card and you'll be ready for your next upgrade - Conroe and a bigger PCI-E gfx. Options are there. Depends if you feel your CPU/whole system needs a revamp.
Ive not had the system long as i got it quite cheap, it runs farcry well just the graphics card isn't good enough for Oblivion. So i think ill just upgrade to the 7600gt agp.
Thanks for the advice
got a new MB.. for the future mate
Yup, get a new motherboard (PCI-E) :)
Just for the record, is it a GF4 MX (DX7) or GF4 titanium (DX8.1)?
its an MSI Geforce MX4000 128mb.
I would definatly go PCI-E. Good AGP cards are hideously expensive comparied to their PCI-E counterparts.