Best Upgrade?

[ajm]

What is the best upgrade i can get from my current 6600GT on AGP ? Also would it be worth it?

 

[semi-pro waster]

You might find it about as well to buy a socket 775 PCI-E motherboard and something like an X1950pro as it will not be likely to cost much more than the AGP version of the X1950pro. It would also give you a bit more of an upgrade path with a faster CPU for the future as well, check compatability with your current CPU though.

 

[ajm]

I think if i did go that route i mught also have to change the mem and psu aswell. So it may not be an option right now.

 

[thefishdude]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-137-SP

thats best agp card.

 

[ajm]

Thanks but i would prefer to go for Nvidia.

 

[truebluecfc]

why?

 

[kevpuk]

<can hear a can of worms being freshly opened>

 

[J.D]

I agree with Truebluecfc as it's the best card for AGP. Well you could always go for a 7 series card that can't do AA and HDR together, has less image quality and scales less at bigger resolutions. Oh and the 7 series has a high failure rate in comparison.

PCI-E = 8800 Series

AGP = X1900/X1950 series

 

[truebluecfc]

Exactly, theirs no point in having "favourites". Just get the one which offers the best performance regardless if their Nvidia/ATI, same goes goes cpu's and AMD/Intel.

 

[Participant]

Well you could always go for a 7 series card that can't do AA and HDR together

My 7600GT allows me to use HDR + AA in HL2

 

[semi-pro waster]

I think if i did go that route i mught also have to change the mem and psu aswell. So it may not be an option right now.

Not if you went for the ASRock 4CoreDual SATA as it supports DDR + DDR2 as well as PCI-E + AGP although obviously not at the same time. However it does mean you could upgrade in stages easily.

 

[J.D]

My 7600GT allows me to use HDR + AA in HL2

You are correct about HL2, HDR and AA. Source engine HDR is a shader model 2.0 based HDR, bloom in effect i guess, not true HDR which uses FP blending such as Far Cry and Oblivion. It has its pros and cons (it looks very similar and runs on a lot more graphics cards, but comes at a much bigger performance hit). Anyway, you are correct that you can enable HDR and AA in HL2 at the same time on Nvidia cards but it's not true HDR.

 

[ajm]

Ok forget that i said i would prefer Nvidia (Just only ever used them no other reason)

@ semi-pro waster
I think i would still need to change my psu for the pci-e board which may make it expensive.

I did take a look at the Ati card posted and it does look good and does get lots of good reviews. It may be worth looking into further to see if it is worth the upgrade for my system from the 6600gt.

 

[Darkwave]

My 7600GT allows me to use HDR + AA in HL2

I think he meant real HDR.

 

[ajm]

Just had another look at that Asrock board and although it accepts ddr 1 & 2 it will only accept 2 sticks amd i have 4 so that borad would not be suitable.

 

[HangTime]

512meg x1950pro for £111 in TWO is definitely the best option if you must upgrade, however I'd recommend trying to sell your existing kit and make the jump to S775/PCI-E/DDR2. You're basically paying a £30 premium for AGP cards.