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PCI, AGP? what to do?

Bash

Bash

Bash

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18 Oct 2002
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In over my head
Guy's

I have a AMD Winchester 3200+ with Abit third eye AGP MB and 1GB of 2 x 512MB Geil memory and an ATI 9800 Pro

Some games are creeking and I think and been advised to upgrade my graphics card. I've like the look of this one on OcUK:-

Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GS+ SILENT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP)

Is this any good? Should I go with this with my setup or should I look at PCI-E? If so what is the benefit? Advice needed.
 
For that price you could get yourself a new mobo graphics
Get something like -

HIS ATI Radeon X1900 GT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-057-HT) £129.99 (£152.74 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
Price: £54.99 (£64.61 Including VAT at 17.5%)

And then save up for a faster cpu with the remaining cash, or flog your current cpu, mobo and graphics on mm and use cash to get bigger cpu.
 
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Only benefit of going PCI-E is that you can get cards which aren't available in AGP, and the PCI-E flavours are cheaper, but PCI-E in itself doesn't give any performance increases. PCI-E would let you get the Connect3D X1800 XT for £150 which is miles better value for money than the overpriced 7800 GS+. Plus the 7800 GS+ is a 7900 GT core, so there's the 5% failure rate problem.

How about the Leadtek 7600 GT AGP? As with all AGP cards it's a little overpriced (£130) compared to some of the other PCI-E 7600 GTs, but it is a great card for someone who wants to stick with AGP for now. It's faster than the 6800 Ultra/X800 XTPE which were the flagship cards not too long back. Pixel shader 3.0 support too. It'll get you to around 6000 in 3DMark05 - you might want to compare that with what your 9800 Pro gets to get an idea of the speed increase.

One other option is buy a 939 board and a PCI-E card like the X1800 XT (faster than the X1900 GT). As deadeyedic30 points out this is actually £50 cheaper than the 7800 GS+. Or for the price of a 7800 GS+ you could get a 939 board and X1900 XT 512 mb even.
 
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Much depends on your budget and how much you wish to spend. I've recently jumped from AGP to PCI-E, but it took a while to make up my mind.

Once you've made the jump it does open up a wide range of excellent GPU's at top prices. The X1800XT is cracking buy for the money, and the money left over could indeed go towards a good Mobo.

Much depends on how much time, money, and effort you want to put in. Can I ask what your present setup consists of? Is it socket 754?

[Sorry - Just realised you've included this info!!]
 
Its definetly worth gong over to PCIe, much much more bang for my back.
Would be a good time to jump over to a conroe setup too :p
 
The biggest gain in going over to pci-e is that with your next build/upgrade you will be able to carry the graphics card over too. With agp you would'nt be able to.

Going for a high spec agp card such as the 7800gs is a waste of money unless you are stuck on a socket that you can't get a pci-e mobo for (socket A for example) and you can't afford a new build. High end agp cards cost more than their pci-e counterparts and in most cases are not as fast either due to the agp/pci-e bridge.

At the budget end and at the moment a very good buy is the BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT at £88.07 for this week only. Very good midrange card with decent performance.

Next up you have the X1800XT at £152 and the X1900GT also at £152. There is a cheaper one but not in stock. Not sure how they compare head to head but i have seen some very good reviews of the X1900GT and they perform somewhere between a 7800gt and a 7900gt. Closer to the 7900gt though.

At the high end you have the X1900 range. I simply do not see the point in the XTX as a XT is only slightly slower and a lot cheaper but will easily clock to XTX speeds.

I have'nt recommended any 7900 series cards due to the problems that they are suffering. Not sure if the 7950's will suffer from the same problems but the cheapest i have seen those are £339.

There are many good pci-e motherboards available so the best thing is to get peoples opinions and then look for reviews.

You might also think about ditching the 2x512mb sticks of ram and going for 2x1GB sticks instead. I have recently done this and have seen quite a lot of benefit with quicker loading times and smoother gameplay too.
 
Wow! So much info. Thanks for all the help guys. i'll let you know what I do. Thanks again.
 
I think of all the options, getting the 7800 GS+ makes the least sense when you can get a 939 PCI-E board and a X1900 XT 512 mb, all for the same price as the 7800 GS+. Plus that option gives you PCI-E upgrade options in the future.

If you want to spend around £260 get a 939 board (nothing wrong with the Asus A8N-E mentioned above) and a Connect3D X1900 XT 512mb. If you want to spend £200 get the 939 board and an X1800 XT 256 mb. The bugdet option would be just getting a 7600 GT AGP for £130.

I'd also recommend a Freezer 64 Pro and get your 3200+ overclocked so you get the best out of whatever new card you go for, or even look into getting a new CPU and selling yours.

Another option - 939 board (£54), PCI-E 7600 GT 256 mb (£88), A64 4000+ SD OEM (£93) and Freezer 64 Pro (£16) all for around £250. Plus you've got spare bits - CPU, board, video card - to sell to make some of that back.
 
Bash said:
Guy's

I have a AMD Winchester 3200+ with Abit third eye AGP MB and 1GB of 2 x 512MB Geil memory and an ATI 9800 Pro

Some games are creeking and I think and been advised to upgrade my graphics card. I've like the look of this one on OcUK:-

Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GS+ SILENT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP)

Is this any good? Should I go with this with my setup or should I look at PCI-E? If so what is the benefit? Advice needed.
Click to expand...

I have one Gainward 7800GS+ and its a cracking card, went from Inno 6800ultra to this and still saw healthy fps increase. Happy to stay AGP till late next year now tbh. Yes they are tad overpriced, but £230 notes seems money well spent now got the grunt to get by till the new generation of gear & prices settles down on components. Here's the thread i did ages ago > Clicky Im no overclocking expert so im sure someone could improve on them scores by a good 10 to 15% tbh.
 
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I got a 7800GS+ last week so here's my take.
Ordered from Oc it came in 24 hours, it took 5mins to install. I loaded the 91.33 Beta drivers. I played All my games on higher settings with them running as smooth as silk. I am in eye candy heaven.
After 3 hours of mad BF2 thrashing it reached 49c and never skipped a beat.
No major rebuild, No windows/software reinstall, no messing at all to be honest.
From the time i took the package at my doorstep to the time i played my first game could have been 5 minutes if i had been less cautious.
Everything about my system and gaming has been improved no end. Higher res and higher in game settings.
Of course if i had 500 quid i may have chosen differently but i didn't and the above is how it has Actually worked out for me.
It is worth noting that this board from Oc has the G71 core and laughs at the deep freeze test. :p came out of 06 @ 46c shouting Gimme more dude, which is why i happily took it into BF2 for some Heavy action.
The best thing about this card is what it allows my dated machine to achieve. Prior to this card i had a stonking X800pro@pe a great card that trotted along through BF2 quite happily. If i raised the res and settings though the card felt it. With the GS+ it loves the higher res and settings and sits at Much lower temps bringing my ambients down as well.

My future upgrades.
I have a 939 board/CPU on its way out of M&M which i think i'll get some use out of but in the future i intend to pick up a 2nd hand Dual board and do the switch that way keeping my GS+.
I know the card has great clocking potential and as my other components are upgraded i can gradually clock my card to suit.
 
Get a PCIE motherboard & an X1900XT. Will be cheaper than getting the 7800GS+ & offer more performance. Its the option that makes the most sense to me. CPU upgrade can be done later on & system will last for ages yet.
 
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