New interim gfx card upgrade - worth it?

[Uriel]

They will need flashing for that board, so id get a differnet one, as even if the newer cards can be flashed to work (8800 GT works after being flashed i know), a 4x slot probably cripples them.

Too late - he already bought one. Still - the PC isn't built yet. There's always distance selling regs and/or 2nd hand market.

LoadsaMoney's right though. It would be far less hassle in the long run to get a board with a full spec PCI-E x16 slot - preferably PCI-E 2.0 x16. I believe that 2.0 may get expensive though, unless you're willing to go AMD for the CPU and motherboard.

Edit: If you absolutely must keep AGP, about the best you could do is something like an ASROCK ALIVEDual-eSATA2. It's an AM2 board so you'd need an Athlon or Phenom but it's got a full 8x AGP slot and a PCI-E x16 1.0a slot. Probably better to get a more up-to-date chipset with just PCI-E and replace the video card though.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Too late - he already bought one.

Dunno how i missed that, im off to specsavers.

 

[Adnams Drinker]

Will bear in mind what you're saying about the PCI-E slot. The decision to go with the Asrock board was always as a stopgap - I can't justify the expense of junking all my components and going for a complete new rig right now, so it at least allows me to upgrade stuff a bit at a time. The long-term plan is to then move up to a more modern board.

I'm not really fussed what timescale that entails - I know at the start of the thread I was thinking of changing my graphics card with games in mind, but games is only part of what the machine will be used for and to be honest, the idea of a staged upgrade of the machine as a whole is more appealing, particularly when it can be done comparatively cheaply. The way I saw it was that my limited budget was better used for the benefit of the whole machine, rather than just one component.

The overriding priority once the machine is built is to remove the other potential bottleneck and get some of the Geil RAM I linked to.

The biggest drawback with my X850 is its lack of SM 3.0 support - whilst I'm using the Asrock board, I haven't ruled out trying to pick up a better AGP card second-hand or on eBay. If it takes me another six months to a year to get to where I'm aiming then that's fine by me - no rush!

 

[Adnams Drinker]

As of last night, I now have a lot faster system - my bro's just upgraded his CPU again and he let me have his E6600, which is now sitting happily under a Freezer 7 Pro.

The whole thing nips along very nicely indeed - so far at least, the fact that I've dropped down to 1Gb of RAM hasn't caused any major hassles, although I might say different the first time I try playing games with it!

I'm aware of the drawbacks of the mobo listed in this and other threads, but for the timebeing, I've taken a step forward from where I was and I'm happy with that.

 

[rounddodger]

As of last night, I now have a lot faster system - my bro's just upgraded his CPU again and he let me have his E6600, which is now sitting happily under a Freezer 7 Pro.

The whole thing nips along very nicely indeed - so far at least, the fact that I've dropped down to 1Gb of RAM hasn't caused any major hassles, although I might say different the first time I try playing games with it!

I'm aware of the drawbacks of the mobo listed in this and other threads, but for the timebeing, I've taken a step forward from where I was and I'm happy with that.

Played. The E6600 is a great CPU, clocks very well and I have no intention of getting rid of mine till sometime next year.