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Can you "over buy" a graphics card

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11 Jan 2007
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I've been out of the PC building loop for a bit, so a quick question from an old duffer!

Is it possible to buy a graphics card that will be a waste of spec due to the limitations of the motherboard its placed in?

i.e. I've an ABIT NF7 ver2.0, XP+2500, system and an ATI 9250 128mb... much as I'd love to upgrade the whole show, I'm stuck for ££'s :rolleyes: and thinking about just sticking a new gfx card in to play some of the newer games.

DDR is my problem - will a newer DDR2 or 3 card get the oportunity to perform when I've got pc2700 RAM loaded in my DDR slots?

I've been looking at second hand 9800XT ...but the x1650pro is a good price new - would I see the benefit of the DDR2 and higher clock speeds on the card in comparison to my Mobo?

...although I have got my eye on a secondhand AMD 3500 64 with K8N Ultra combo :D as a subtle upgrade ;) now all I need is some overtime.
 
Either of those cards would be a good upgrade for the motherboard/cp/ram combo.

It really depends upon what games and at what res looking for as to wether you will get current games to run smoothly
 
ussff said:
I've been out of the PC building loop for a bit, so a quick question from an old duffer!

Is it possible to buy a graphics card that will be a waste of spec due to the limitations of the motherboard its placed in?

i.e. I've an ABIT NF7 ver2.0, XP+2500, system and an ATI 9250 128mb... much as I'd love to upgrade the whole show, I'm stuck for ££'s :rolleyes: and thinking about just sticking a new gfx card in to play some of the newer games.

DDR is my problem - will a newer DDR2 or 3 card get the oportunity to perform when I've got pc2700 RAM loaded in my DDR slots?

I've been looking at second hand 9800XT ...but the x1650pro is a good price new - would I see the benefit of the DDR2 and higher clock speeds on the card in comparison to my Mobo?

...although I have got my eye on a secondhand AMD 3500 64 with K8N Ultra combo :D as a subtle upgrade ;) now all I need is some overtime.
i have a similar setup to you except I have a 9550 and it can play most new games at medium(ish) settings at 1280x1024 with 30-40 fps, and if i up some of the the graphic settings and AA etc then it goes down to 10-20fps (obviously depends wht games). I can play Medieval Total War 2 at medium-high settings at bout 25fps. not sure how much of an improvement you would see in an upgrade to a 9550 though. If u got a new mobo u may aswell just get new everything and you said your on a budget so that's not really a good idea. How much ram have you got?
 
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Before you rush out and spend loads of cash please note that I am running an Athlon XP 2400+ in an NF7-S ver 1 motherboard. Earlier this year I upgraded memory from 512MB to 2GB. This is THE critical upgrade for games. I also put in a Gainward "Golden Sample" BLISS 7600GT AGP card. The card cost me about £100 from OC about two or three months ago and I can't praise it highly enough.

I have played Vanguard at highish settings, LOTRO at well above medium settings and to my surprise am playing Oblivion with al settings maxed out, large textures at 1600 x 1200 res. Oblivion works even outdoors with just the occasional little lag. I should turn some of the settings down a wee bit to smooth things out but I always seem to end up sacrificing smoothness for eye candy in any game I play.

Hope this helps.
 
asuming you don't have any pci-e slots u may aswell buy a cheap mobo tht supports your cpu, get 2gb of cheap ddr2 ram and get the ocuk x1950pro for £70 all of tht would probz cost you around 150-200? you could probly get a cheap 775 board and all the above and a cheap c2d and oc it for bout the same price.
 
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i'd definitely get the x1650pro over the 9800xt. it's a good bit faster. and it's a good match for your setup too. it's not going to be held back - assuming you have at least 1gb of ram? :)
 
RAM I hear most of you shouting...

Right I've got 2x256 pc2700 ram loaded with one spare slot - I've read that the mobo will use fsb400 ram instead of the 333 I've got, but only in 2 slots... ??? So 2x512 (minimum) is a more expensive than just sticking a third stick of pc2700 512mb in the spare slot - to get me to a gig.

Bottom line - 1 Gb of 400fsb (512x2 in 2 slots) or 1 Gb of 333fsb (256x2 + 512) any real difference@ :confused: combined with a x1650pro
 
I've already got Corsair Select pc2700 on the system....

Sapphire Radeon X1650PRO 512MB DDR2, AGP - £56.05 Inc VAT
Corsair Value Select 512Mb DDR PC2700 - £16.45 Inc VAT

...change out of £80 and a short spike of life into my machine to keep it going for another year(ish). What do you all think? :p
 
get that exta ram plus a PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Extreme SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (agp) £99.99
plus vat = (£117.49)
 
The problem here is that the cheapest set of 2 x 1gig DDR on OCUK is £88, for £150 you can get a C2D, 2x1gig of DDR2 and a Mobo. A PCIE card that is faster than both you have looked at is only another £70 max. You could sell your current Mobo/cpu/mem/gfx and probably upgrade for the same amount as you would have spent on just the DDR Ram.
 
pegasus1 said:
The problem here is that the cheapest set of 2 x 1gig DDR on OCUK is £88, for £150 you can get a C2D, 2x1gig of DDR2 and a Mobo. A PCIE card that is faster than both you have looked at is only another £70 max. You could sell your current Mobo/cpu/mem/gfx and probably upgrade for the same amount as you would have spent on just the DDR Ram.
thts wht i was trying to say earlier pretty much, but then he'd probz hav to get a new psu.
 
Th3D0n said:
get that exta ram plus a PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Extreme SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (agp) £99.99
plus vat = (£117.49)

way overkill for the existing pc. i wouldn't pair that with an athlon xp. the x1650pro is a better match and won't need a new psu. :)
 
yantorsen said:
thts wht i was trying to say earlier pretty much, but then he'd probz hav to get a new psu.
Sorry mate, just miossed your post but your bang on. its hard to recommend spending £90 when £200 buys you so much more.
8600GT doesnt need external power ;)
 
marc2003 said:
way overkill for the existing pc. i wouldn't pair that with an athlon xp. the x1650pro is a better match and won't need a new psu. :)
he will still see a inprovment over the x1650 if he got the x1950 and probly a big inprovment in the new games like crysis and bioshock
 
It looks good, but you could get better for not much more cash, id be looking at somthing like this.

2 x Corsair Value Select 512Mb DDR PC2700 - £16.45 x2
this would give better performance than using three sticks

7600gt ddr3 agp -£70
x1650xt ddr3 agp - £80
if you went for a x1650xt though make sure it's one of the ddr3 models.


This would give you a very respectable system for about £100 give or take and apart from a Molex to PCIE power addapter to supply the GFX card i cant see any problems if you already have a half decent power supply.


the x1950pro ddr3 agp is worth the extra money, but it's a little power hungry and gets quite hot, so you would have to look at your power supply and case cooling first.

Hope this helps,
jigger.
 
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