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PCI Video Cards.

BoomAM said:
lol.
Its probably the reason why i havnt played a PC game in ages as well. Cant be bothered spending a few hours optimising it so it runs well, and cant be bother messing around installing a new gfx card so that i dont have to optimise it. lol.
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Errr... are you me in disguise? I still havn't finished HL2, and my character in GTA:SA is still knocking around on his push-bike. :p LOL. Spend all day looking at PCs, don't want to play games as much as before. Though still get some odd LANing in with the mates...
BoomAM said:
Its good to hear that someones read the log/looked at the links in my sig. :)
You should document your work down on here. It'll be good for people to view & learn off. Because thats the reason i did it, so people could learn off it/get ideas.
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Maybe I'll put it up just for the sake of the madness of cabling. I'll have to display my hi-quality cable design layout worked out in a proper professional design package - MS Paint!! :D
 
I agree with you guys - I spend 8 to 10 hours a day looking after City traders and market analysts pc needs , last thing I want to do when coming home is tidy up my pc hahahaha - even at weekends its like spend an hour or so on Most Wanted before doing absolutely anything else :D
 
BoomAM: Just been clearing out some junk, and found that I still had the carcass of my mates old PC case. Complete with it's naff spec sticker.

So the hardware in use is:
  • [*]Advent T9304 PC
    [*]Intel P4 HT 640 (3.2Ghz)
    [*]Ati Radeon X740 XL
    [*]1GB DDR
    [*]300GB HDD
 
BoomAM said:
Thanks.
Ive never even heard of a Ati Radeon X740 XL. lol. :p
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Must be an Advent special.... :rolleyes: specially designed to cook itself to near death due to the cheapo fan. Also has an extreme number of inputs and outputs. Including a SCART connection. Could probally best describe this as a chav PC trying to act as if it is part of an AV setup....

A quick Google shows it is a close relation to an X700....
http://www.beyond3d.com/misc/chipcomp/?view=boarddetails&id=253

(I'm not too hot on the Ati model numbers as I have been an nVidian since the Riva-128..... :cool: )

Edit: Should also mention that this Radeon X740 is a VERY customised OEM card. There are a lot of custom connections to the card, which includes links to a SCART socket, an s-video out (mini-DIN), an s-video in (phono), even part of the card reader plugs into it...

The cables in this PC were a NIGHTMARE when swapping into the new case. Lots of custom cutting and dremeling required to transfer all the weird bits.
 
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lol.
Im thinking of putting off getting the ATI PCI Card.
Mainly because im thinking of getting a 7950. :p
So im gonna have to source a good nVidia PCI Card.
 
Did you sell the old Ati PCI then?

Just had a look on the OCUK pages, and they don't do any nV PCI cards. Must be some around though...

Gonna shut down the PC now.... that lightning storm is getting a little toooo close for comfort. Surge protectors can only protect to a certain extent... :eek:
 
MAllen said:
Did you sell the old Ati PCI then?

Just had a look on the OCUK pages, and they don't do any nV PCI cards. Must be some around though...
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Nope, i took it back. Only had it 2 days. :p
The cheapest PCI nVidia card i can find is a 128Mb FX5200 for £56.
 
BoomAM said:
Nope, i took it back. Only had it 2 days. :p
The cheapest PCI nVidia card i can find is a 128Mb FX5200 for £56.
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£56!!! That is taking the "p" big time for such an old card. (As he slags off the 5x00 series of cards while trying to ignore what is written in his own signature :rolleyes: )

Maybe you could get away with a second brand alongside your (soon to be) new nV card? Not sure how well Ati and nV would live together. Or maybe a Matrox PCI? What about second hand auctions? I wouldn't expect to pay more than £30 for that kind of card.

Definate trick to learn is from this thread though - Video and Sound cards can both be fussy about sharing interupts. And don't use PCI#1 unless your PCI-e or AGP slot is empty. :D
 
I was thinking of the PCI-E x1 Matrox G550, especially if it doesnt need any drivers beyond what comes with windows. Or if it needs its own set of drivers, then ones that dont interfere with ATI or nVidia ones, but i cant find any reviews or info on it at all.
Because that'd let me use the PCI bus exclusivly for a new sound card. :p
 
Ah... the classic Matrox. Decent cards, as long as you don't want to play games. They still need drivers though, and I'd always replace Microsoft versions with up to date ones written by the actual manufacturers.

Or are you thinking of one of the Matrox cards with three or four connectors? They don't come cheap - and IIRC the drivers clash hard with Ati drivers.

A four headed Matrox card was one of the options I was investigating for my mate. We were going to chuck out the Ati PCI-e card and replace with a Matrox multi-headed monster. Price sooon put a stop to that.

So next choice was to look at the Matrox triple headed PCI cards.... but that is when investigations started bringing up some hassle or other. So I just plumped for the cheap £30 Ati PCI card from OCUK.

Don't worry about mixing PCI sound and graphics cards. It's not a problem, just need to do some shuffling of slots for the happiest setup. :D
 
I was thinking of just one of the 'normal' Matrox cards. As they do PCI-E & PCI versions.
Although if the drivers conflict, i dont think i'll bother.

The PCI/PCI-E card i buy depends largely what main card i decide to buy to replace my X800XL. I still havnt entirely decided yet.
 
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