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Hi there, I'm currently building a PC (3200+ AMD 64, 512mb RAM) and mistakenly ordered the Asus A8V AGP mother board when I wanted the PCI-e one. Is it worth the hassle of sending it back and asking for a swap for a PCI-e board with a view to putting in a PCI-e video card, or should I just make do and put in an AGP video card? I'm not too bothered about playing the latest games, just don't want a computer that's going to be obselete in a month's time...
I would say that if you're not too bothered about playing the latest games, then you should be ok with AGP. By the time you need to upgrade, there'll be a new technology available anyways!
OK, thanks for that.
Now the next bit, can anyone recommend a decent AGP graphics card for c£50? Or am I aiming too low there?
ti4200 :P 10 quid ebay
OK, cheers, I'll have a look for that.
In my 'huge' game collection, I've got Call of Duty and Black & White, will it be able to play them at a decent refresh rate?
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=302976&cks=PRL
this is best for 50 £
if you find 9800pro or 6600 for c£ then go for it.
one more for less money - Hercules 3D Prophet 9600SE (25£)-http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_This_Week_Only_25.html#aGX_2d026_2dHE
or a 9700pro for £50 here http://www.retekdirect.co.uk/acatalog/Video_Cards.html
OK, thanks guys, I shall have a look at all of those.
Right, what's the difference between the 9600SE and Pro? And between them and the 9700? Is a 9600 pro with 256MB better than a 9700 with 128?
Confused...
The Pro version of the card is better than the standard and SE versions.
Onto the 9600Pro vs. the 9700, I'd be tempted to go with the 9600Pro. How much are each?
the 9600se is a cut down version and is an absolute stinker. There's no real advantage of having 256mb on a 9600pro. The plain 128mb 9700 is a better/faster card than the 256mb 9600pro. The 9700pro is even better still and for £50 would be my choice without any doubt.
I am still using one I bought from retek 2 years ago for £160 and it plays serious sam2 and call of duty 2 demos fine. No trouble with WoW either so it will do everything you want of it.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...229/index.html gives benchmarks for AGP cards.
I have a 128mb 9800pro AIW which I picked up new (retail boxed) for £76 a few months ago and it's happily coping with BF2 and CSSource at 1280x960 with graphics on medium. from what I hear then 9600pro will cope with them too, only not quite as well, so I doubt your box would become obsolete too quickly. I would avoid the nvidia 4200 as it's a bit past it and simply does not work with some games already. Possibly look at the low-end nvidia 6series cards (dunno what 6200/6600 performance is like but they aren't too expensive) or ati x300/x700 on a budget?
One thing to consider is whether you intend to use dual monitors or linux, in which case I am told that Nvidia is a better route to take at the moment.
What about a 9600XT?
XT is just little bump in core and memory clocks, nothig more.
Complete comparsion :
9600SE - 4 pipes / 64 bit mem. bus / fillrate- 1300 MTexels/s / Memory bandwidth - 3.20 GB/s
9600 - 4 pipes / 128bit mem. bus / fillrate- 1300 MTexels/s / Memory bandwidth - 6.40 GB/s
9600pro - 4 pipes / 128bit mem. bus / fillrate- 1600 MTexels/s / Memory bandwidth - 9.60 GB/s
9600XT - 4 pipes / 128bit mem. bus / fillrate- 2000 MTexels/s /
Memory bandwidth - 9.60 GB/s - only bump in core mhz
9700 - 8 pipes / 256bit. mem. bus / fillrate- 2200 MTexels/s / Memory bandwidth - 17.28 GB/s
9700 pro - 8 pipes / 256bit. mem. bus / fillrate- 2600 MTexels/s / Memory bandwidth - 19.84 GB/s
9800 pro - better mhz in core and mem.
So if this 50 £ is correct price for 9700 pro GO for it!
I hope this was helpfull
I ended up going for the 9700pro. Thanks for the advice, guys.
Those are good cards, my brothers got one(well, actually its a 9500Pro, but its softmodded to be a 9700PRo) and they've very good cards for their time. Plays CoD without any bother at 1280x1024 with lots of nice settins :)
I went with the 9700Pro, and am fairly pleased with it so far. The only problem is that it freezes up every now and then when playing Far Cry. Is this a faulty card, or is Far Cry just a bit too advanced for the card? I'm playing it on medium settings, and can sometimes recover it when the recovery program sets in, but most of the time it's a blank screen, although I can still get Windows inthe background...
I used to play FarCry on a 3GHz P4 with a 9700Pro and it was pretty smooth.
FarCry needs 1GB really to shine.
Ah, that may be it. I've only got 512Mb
Time to get more memory, I htink
Basically, no less that 1GB of ram
Get it second hand (in the for sale fourm which you will see after u have 30 posts) as there are alot of ram sales at the mo and most ram has a lifetime warrenty.
Or get some new stuff, unless you want to do any over clocking then just get value ram. The only thing heatspreaders to is protect the ram, they have no cooling affects so dont worry if you are not bothered by looks. I would recomend Corsair value ram available at Scan which you will get free delivery with after you get 30 posts.
Your PC wont be obolete any time soon unless you are playing games on it.
Thanks nvening.
The RAM I have at the mo is a 512Mb stick of Elixir. Can I mix this with a 512 of Corsair, would I be better off just getting a 2nd Elixir stick, or should I ditch and get 2 sticks of corsair?
Also, could it be the PSU that's causing the GFX card to crash? I've only got the standard 400w PSU that came with my ColorsIt case...
Ensure that you have all the latest drivers for gfx card etc and latest patch for farcry.
Edit: also I seem to recall sound issues crashing this game the same as the original CoD. So swap the sound options around to see if that fixes it.
I completed farcry with a 9700pro with no issues. 1gb of ram is a must.
Could be... what brand? If it generic or a Q-Tec, it could be the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smudger
It should be fine just to add in another 512MB stick - I've never had any problems with mixing brands.Quote:
The RAM I have at the mo is a 512Mb stick of Elixir. Can I mix this with a 512 of Corsair, would I be better off just getting a 2nd Elixir stick, or should I ditch and get 2 sticks of corsair?
I've got the latest drivers for the gfx card, but haven't looked for the FAr Cry patch yet. Might give it a try tonight...
Does memory have to be in matched pairs these days, or does it not matter too much any more?
What exactly do you mean by matched pairs? If you mean in dual channel, then that gives you a small (5 or 10%) boost in performance. It doesn't really matter if the two sticks aren't the same model - they'll just run at the speed of the slowest stick, which isn't a problem if the specs are pretty much the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smudger
Ok, Ta.
The PSU is just a generic one I think, I got the PSU and case as one package.
On the memory thing, I'd read people going on about matching pairs and thought it might be a necessary. If it just means the things run at the speed of the slowest, it's probably not a prob.
There was a time whenb silly rambus made u use two matched sticks, but now that is not needed. But, if yoy do use two matched ram sticks you can run them in dual channel which will make it faster than normal
The sticks don't need to be matched. My sticks don't match, and my PC runs happily in dual channel.Quote:
Originally Posted by nvening
Dual Channel is something thats massively over-rated, I find it amazing that so many people still rate it. The differences between dual and single channel are generally about 3-5% in performance terms, its not alot. Certainly not worth worrying about.