PCI...what?

[kiss my RICE]

Hey you guys...I've heard that you need to upgrade your entire PC in order to make it compatable with a PCIe X16 motherboard...how do you know that you need the upgrade? All I can see..is that I have an older AGP motherboard...and I'd like to upgrade to PCIe...here are my system specs if they matter:

Athlon 64 3200+@ 2.2MHz will OC it..
Radeon 9800 XT 256 MB AGP-> Radeon X1600 PRO 512 MB AGP card(IF PCI doesn't work)
1 Gigabyte Corsair DDR RAM
250 Gigabyte SATA harddrive

Please, please tell me how to upgrade to PCIe....

[Scinto]

Re: PCI...what?

you should only need a new motherboard(with SATA capabilities) & Processor the rest you can keep,, unless you can find a motherboard that supports your chipset and is PCI-e

[mlkmnz]

Re: PCI...what?

This is a continuance of another thread of yours where you wanted to get a better AGP card, right? You can get a PCI-E board that supports your current components, but theres little point.

To be honest dude, unless you want to spend some serious money upgrading ALL (and I do mean all) of your components, upgrading your motherboard in order to obtain a PCI-E slot just isnt worth it. You can, but youll be paying about $100 to shift all your components onto another motherboard, but the motherboard you get wont support current and future cutting edge componentry like DDR2 RAM, Dual core CPUs, etc, itll just run your existing components with the addition of a PCI-E slot, and to me, thats just a waste of $100. Just buy a decent AGP slot and save your pennies for a year, in the meantime you can play every game around pretty well.

[kiss my RICE]

Re: PCI...what?

Thanks man...I think I'm just going to go with a Powercolor X1600 Pro 512 MB AGP card...its pretty good, and cheap.

Also...what was up with the 100$ that I would have to pay in order to "move" my parts into the new mobo? My dad is a computer freak, and pretty much knows all there is to know about computer parts, he can pretty much fix a computer as well as a Best Buy or Geek Squad guy, but for free!

[mlkmnz]

Re: PCI...what?

How much is it? And don't get caught up with the fact its 512MB, manufacturers sometimes put more RAM on a card than is useful to sucker people in. A 256MB version of that card will perform exactly the same.

[kiss my RICE]

Re: PCI...what?

Well...I wanna ask you something...I really only need a new card because of BF2142 and other high-end games. My 9800 XT runs BF2 fine on all medium settings, and I get decent FPS. If I wait until...late october/early november...will I be able to upgrade to PCIe cheaply? Please, answer this.

Also the card is 140$

[mlkmnz]

Re: PCI...what?

Ok. 2142 has the same system requirements as BF2, so it should run the same for you, if you're happy with your current performance, you need not update. I wouldnt bother upgrading your motherboard for 6 months, Conroe (new Intel processor) is being released shortly and will be affordable in 6 months - you are wasting your time getting a new motherboard for your existing components. If you want an AGP graphics card, the below gives you the best bang for buck and is better than an X1600.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-SAPPHIRE-RAD...QQcmdZViewItem

Those guys do quite a few good cards.

[kiss my RICE]

Re: PCI...what?

.....Since its an Ebay item..I have a small chance of buying it..how about this card? Nearly the same card if I'm not mistaken.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131010

Games I want to play:

Battlefield 2142
Dawn of War/Winter Assault/Dark Crusade
Battlefield 2
Warcraft 3/Frozen Throne

Can I run them on medium-high settings? I've heard from a certain ReaperofSouls in the totalbf2142 forums, that thought DICE have restructured the engine, they have also made explosions and effects more realistic, creating more demand on the GPU. Anyways, I've heard that 2 gigs of ram won't help at all unless your GPU rocks..and mine most definetly will not...x800...*sniffle*

[mlkmnz]

Re: PCI...what?

Yes that card is fine, apparently some of those GTO models can be hacked to X850XT PE specs too.

[Kapyong]

Re: PCI...what?

Greetings all,

How much is it? And don't get caught up with the fact its 512MB, manufacturers sometimes put more RAM on a card than is useful to sucker people in. A 256MB version of that card will perform exactly the same.

Well,
yes and no :-)

Some people buy a system with 2GB of system RAM - are they "suckers" too? Just because they could have bought 1GB?

The extra memory will not get you extra FPS - quite correct (in fact, sometimes the larger card has SLOWER memory to save cost - beware of this trap.)

But,
the extra video memory CAN be quite useful IF you play a game which uses lots of textures (e.g. some games already use 400M or so.)

So, if you do want to allow for very high end games, or future games, then the extra video RAM can be valuable.

For instance - when I play BF2, I see it uses about 190M at my settings.

Initially I had a 128M card, and it would stutter a bit as it swapped textures from system RAM (because 190M won't fit in 128M).

When I upgraded to a 256M, I found those little stutters stopped.


It's just like system RAM - the more the better.

More does NOT make your system faster, but it DOES mean you can do MORE before it slows down - that's the whole issue.


Kapyong

[mlkmnz]

Re: PCI...what?

Some people buy a system with 2GB of system RAM - are they "suckers" too? Just because they could have bought 1GB?

Thats a "depends" question, like with graphics cards it would depend on your system. If you have a mid-range system, you'd be better spending the $80 or so on a second gig of RAM on a better graphics card. I'd rather have 1GB of RAM and a 7800GT than 2GB of RAM and a 7600GT, there would be few if any examples in the real world of the latter combination being superior, especially for gaming.

If you have the hell uber-l33t and expensive gaming rig, then yeah, 2GB is dandy. But for 90% of gamers and PC owners in general, anything over 1GB is overkill and money better spent elsewhere.

But,
the extra video memory CAN be quite useful IF you play a game which uses lots of textures (e.g. some games already use 400M or so.)

Initially I had a 128M card, and it would stutter a bit as it swapped textures from system RAM (because 190M won't fit in 128M).

When I upgraded to a 256M, I found those little stutters stopped.

It's just like system RAM - the more the better.

Kapyong

Your point here is flawed - what was your 128MB card and what was your 256MB card? For example, a 256MB 6600GT is slower than a 128MB equivalent, but a 256MB 7600GT is of course going to be better than a 128MB 9800XT. I'm sure its the improvement of your graphics cards chipset that gave you the biggest performance boost, not the amount of memory. A 128MB 6600GT would slay a 512MB X1300 card every day of the week, in any environment, any time.

Fact is, no card below a 6800GT/7800GT or X1800 would ever need 512MB of ram, ever, its a waste of time. Even 256MB is pushing what the mid level cards can feasably use. And 512MB of ram on something like an X1300/7300GT, etc is going to be cheap, nasty, slow ram that only slows the card down.

Don't get caught up in numbers, unfortunately the industry has created this mindset of "the more there is of something, the better it must be", and in some cases, thats just not true.

[Scinto]

Re: PCI...what?

.....Since its an Ebay item..I have a small chance of buying it..how about this card? Nearly the same card if I'm not mistaken.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131010

Games I want to play:

Battlefield 2142
Dawn of War/Winter Assault/Dark Crusade
Battlefield 2
Warcraft 3/Frozen Throne

Can I run them on medium-high settings? I've heard from a certain ReaperofSouls in the totalbf2142 forums, that thought DICE have restructured the engine, they have also made explosions and effects more realistic, creating more demand on the GPU. Anyways, I've heard that 2 gigs of ram won't help at all unless your GPU rocks..and mine most definetly will not...x800...*sniffle*

as no-one really knows the requirements for BF2142 that card could be at the low end or possibly not compatible but after BF2142 you may have to get a new Rig, games are getting more graphical and need a high end machine

[mlkmnz]

Re: PCI...what?

games are getting more graphical and need a high end machine

Again yes and no. BF2 has VERY steep system requirements given its appearance, this is due more so to poor coding than anything else. I have other games which look better which require half the power of BF2.