Could someone explain to me...

foomonkey · 13 Dec 2009 at 00:13

...how i work out if my motherboard is DDR3/DDR2/DDR compatible for a graphics card?

i'm trying to buy a graphics card for a old pc that doesnt have one but im not sure to what type of graphics card to go for. how do i work out what my motherboard will support?

this pc is a good 6 years old (my gf's old pc) and was bought for £500 at the time if this helps narrow down to what it could support.

EDIT - i took the RAM out to check what type it was to find its DDR. is it most likely then that the motherboard will only be able to support a DDR Graphic Card on its PCI-E port?

rhysduck · 13 Dec 2009 at 00:22

Do you know the model or make of motherboard it is?
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Have a look at that above: download and install it on the pc you would like to know more about.
Post back the information in the MAIN CIRCUIT BOARD category

cmndr_andi · 13 Dec 2009 at 00:45

Aye, knowing what your motherboard is should be your first priority. CPU-Z is also a font of information.

As the PC is rather old - it is likely to be using an AGP graphics card. So none of the PCI Express (PCI-E) ones you usually see today are not compatible.

Also, the System RAM type doesn't need to match the graphics memory type - its a whole different system.

If it does have a PCI-E port, then any of todays graphics cards will work with the motherboard. However, the power supply, case size and budget will limit which cards you can go for.

foomonkey · 13 Dec 2009 at 01:45

cheers ... will try out one of those programs tomorrow at some point.

i don't plan on spending much, like £30 if that on a gx card. just something to tide it over as i'm giving it to my younger brother as a gift for xmas. looking to modify this system so that it can handle Dawn of War 2 and other similar games for him.

pastymuncher · 13 Dec 2009 at 13:23

If it's that old then it won't have a pci-e graphics slot. It could be pci or maybe AGP both of which will seriously limit and choice of cards.

The board should have the make and model number marked on it.

foomonkey · 20 Dec 2009 at 06:07

ok i finally found time to do this and i ran CPUID and this is the info i got;

Monitoring
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mainboard Model AMETHYST-M (0x000002E9 - 0x1786F9C8)

LPCIO
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

LPCIO Vendor SMSC
LPCIO Model LPC47M192
LPCIO Vendor ID 0x55
LPCIO Chip ID 0x60
Config Mode I/O address 0x2E
Config Mode LDN 0xA
Config Mode registers
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20 60 01 08 00 44 00 2E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
30 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
50 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
60 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
70 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Register space LPC, base address = 0x0800

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

...can anyone tell me what kinda gx card slot this will hold and whenever it need a DDR/DDR2 gx card??

also i noticed that this pc has 512 MB of DDR ram in it but Winxp system info only picks up 384 MB RAM. is there any reason to this as i wanted to add up to 2 gb or RAM to this machine. i don't want to spend that cash to find it won't work for some reason.

cheers!

EDIT - after checking this website i've found that the motherboard does have a PCI-E slot which is fantastic but does it matter which type of gx card i go for (DDR/DDR2/DDR3) ??

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00378480&dlc=en&lc=en&cc=us

the problem with the RAM though still remains if someone could help me out and explain why this has happened ??

malcolm · 20 Dec 2009 at 09:20

The memory used on the motherboard has nothing to do with the memory that an add-on gfx card uses. Some of the System memory is probably being used by the integrated graphics controller, which is why XP reports only 384MB available.

Why do you want to add a gfx card? While most add on cards will perform better than the integrated card, if we are to offer advice you need to state what you want the gfx card for.

Here is a link to the manual for your gf's PC Motherboard, which was made by MSI:

http://217.110.237.67/Manuals/7184-engl v1.x.pdf

coupe69 · 20 Dec 2009 at 18:23

foomonkey said:
also i noticed that this pc has 512 MB of DDR ram in it but Winxp system info only picks up 384 MB RAM.

As your not using a dedicated video card, the onboard graphics is obviously using 128mb from your physical memory and using it for video memory. Once you install a new video card with it's own memory you will get back this 128mb to use.

For thirty quid you're not going to get anything spectacular, but something like this would probably do you for the time being.

foomonkey · 20 Dec 2009 at 22:10

malcolm said:
Why do you want to add a gfx card? While most add on cards will perform better than the integrated card, if we are to offer advice you need to state what you want the gfx card for.
http://217.110.237.67/Manuals/7184-engl v1.x.pdf

foomonkey said:
i don't plan on spending much, like £30 if that on a gx card. just something to tide it over as i'm giving it to my younger brother as a gift for xmas. looking to modify this system so that it can handle Dawn of War 2 and other similar games for him.

clear enough at all ?

next time please read what was said

malcolm · 20 Dec 2009 at 22:37

Yep, guilty as charged, missed your second post, too busy worrying about the technicalities. Slap on wrist administered!

The recommended system specs for D of W 2 is:
Recommended:

* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
* AMD Athlon 64×2 4400+ or any Intel Core 2 Duo
* 2 GB RAM (XP and Vista)
* A 256MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) - Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT / ATI X1900, or equivalent
* 5.5 GB of Hard Drive space

Minimum Requirements
* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
* P4 3.2 GHz (single core) or any Dual Core processor
* 1 GB RAM (XP), 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
* A 128MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) - Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT / ATI X1600, or equivalent

I'm not sure that a £30 gfx card would compare very favourably with a 6600GT/X1600, and you're going to need some more memory.

Quixote · 21 Dec 2009 at 00:41

To be clear on the original question though : The type of memory on a graphics card has no relation at all to the motherboard.
If the graphics card has GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR5, whatever & the motherboard supports DDR1, DDR2, DDR3, it doesn't matter.
The only way in which a graphics card needs to be comatable with a motherboard is by connecting through the right slot.
If your motherboard supports PCI-E then any PCI-E graphics card will work no matter what type of memory either the graphics card or motherboard use.

foomonkey · 21 Dec 2009 at 01:04

Quixote said:
To be clear on the original question though : The type of memory on a graphics card has no relation at all to the motherboard.
If the graphics card has GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR5, whatever & the motherboard supports DDR1, DDR2, DDR3, it doesn't matter.
The only way in which a graphics card needs to be comatable with a motherboard is by connecting through the right slot.
If your motherboard supports PCI-E then any PCI-E graphics card will work no matter what type of memory either the graphics card or motherboard use.

Cheers !

DIABLO · 21 Dec 2009 at 17:57

CPU-Z on the Motherboard tab tell you what graphics interface it has, i'd imagine it is AGP, you'll need to upgrade the ram as said above to have any hope of some resemblance of speed, be under no delusion though this PC will be dog slow with anything remotely modern game wise.