Upgrade to PCI-E now?

[Jonny]

Hi,

I have a MSI K8N Neo 2 running an overclocked 3700+ and an overclocked 9800 Pro.
The 9800 is starting to show its age and I would say is definately the bottleneck of my system.
So;

Do I buy a newer AGP card such as a 6800 Ultra;
Or go for PCI-E (new mobo and gfx)?

I play a bit of BF2 and NFSMW here and there, and also do some DVD watching and image work.

I have two monitors, but they are both old and I don't have enough money to upgrade them too. They are both 17 inch CRTs.

I have about £170 to spend on a new card, or if I was going PCI-E I would be willing to spend this on the card and another £90 on the motherboard. I would never go SLi, unless I won the lottery.

Thanks!

Edit: price check in 4th post!

[GDVS]

Go PCI-E, you need to make the jump some time and this is as good a time as any. If you shop carefully and can go another £20ish on the GFX card you should be able to get a 78090GT for that price.

[Max Tractor]

They are stopping making agp cards, yes the 7800 agp is out shortly price tag of 230-250, but it is wasted money. The £170 for the new card should be put towards pci express, get yourself a 7800gt and an epox(card 190 board 60-80), and sell your old kit off

[Jonny]

Yeah, you guys are saying what I was thinking....
I may sell my mobo, RAM and GFX, just keeping the CPU.

What do you reckon I can get for this then?

MSI K8N Neo 2
9800 Pro 256Mb fitted with VF700 Cu Cooler
2x512Mb (Matched Pair) Corsair XMS 3200

[Max Tractor]

30-35
if the pro is the 256bit version 45-65

[chazt]

depends what kind of corsair xms you have(ie latency)

[asteroth]

why not buy an asrock dual sata for 42 quid. keep your CPU, PSU, RAM, GPU...

then upgrade your GPU as and when.

if yo go PCI-E now, you might have to replace the PSU, MB and GPU right now.

the dual sata overclocks very well (assuming you only need an extra .5v on the CPU)
performance is the same as an NF4.

42 quid now and then GPU and RAM and PSU when affordable, i know you are not gong to be using the AGP slot on the asrock, i am suggesting it as it is terrific performance for the price and you could use the money save to put towards a better GPU.

i think the PSU might the cruncher, what are you running|?

[Jonny]

It's a Thermaltake PurePower (Butterfly) 480W.

Is the asrock good enough to keep as a permanent motherboard? I don't mind losing PCI slot space through a redundant AGP slot, I don't use PCI cards anyway!

Oh and the XMS is 2-2-2-5 at stock, I think. (I'm running it higher to allow for an overclock).

[asteroth]

PSU is good enough, read some reviews on the board, i have one and recommend it, for 42 quid the performance is great, its made by ASUS (essentially) i have had no problems and am running my opteron 146 at 2500mhz on default volts.

the board only supplies 2.8v on memory max, and .5v above default volts for CPU, it also has a BIOS limitation on 274 fsb (or what ever the A64 version is called), your chip has a 10x multi? all these limitations can be overcome with a BIOS from ocworkbench and a soldering iron.

it just depends what you want, you can get an NF4 board from Gigabyte for about 50-60 quid, does your PSU have a 24 pin power adaptor? if not you might be able to buy one, i think most NF4 boards require a 24pin power plug.

the asrock is a 20 pin, i consider mine a stepping stone to pci-e, i bought a CPU and the Asrock and kept my GPU, PSU and RAM, my next purchase will be a pci-e GPU, and the one after that might be a new PSU and or MB....

[KowShak]

If you're going to buy a 6800 GT, at some point you'll want to upgrade it, that'll be the time to go to PCIe.

At the moment there isn't really an advantage to going over to PCIe (a PCIe 6800 GT isn't a lot faster or cheaper than an AGP one) so I'd hang on to the £90 for now. Make the change when you _need_ to go PCIe, it'll be cheaper to change over later on and you'll be able to get a better board with newer features for less money.

On the other hand, if you go to PCIe now, can have more new toys!

Why are you thinking about selling your RAM, surely it's compatable with a PCIe board?

[Jonny]

Why are you thinking about selling your RAM, surely it's compatable with a PCIe board?

Yes, it is, but I would go to 2 x 1Gb - that's an upgrade I've been planning for a while and I may as well do it all at once.

I'm coming more round to the idea of just getting a good AGP card. PCI-e can be an upgrade for the end of the summer, I think, when it's all cheaper. I really do like my current motherboard and don't really want to lose it right now.

Thanks for the advice! Anyone else regret the switch to PCI-e, or are you all mainly happy with the extra cash spent/performance etc?

[kalniel]

Well I got an ASRock dual board and I kind of miss AGP - if I'd got an AGP card I would be able to sell it for more second hand later

PCIe isn't any faster than AGP

[Jonny]

Well, I've decided to stick with AGP. That will last me until at least the end of the year, and I will probably get some more RAM some time soon!