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AGP vid card recommendations?
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| Cuervo79 |
yes yes my comp is kind of a dinosaur.
its a pentium 4 3.4ghz
2 gigs of ram
AGP x8
and pci slots
2 hdd one ide one sata
2 dvd=rom drives 1 a recorder
Audigy plat
The only vid card I could get with it when it was new was a crappy ATI radeon 9200se with 128ram wich doesn't let me play much of the games I like and the ones it des its pretty crappy performance.
I now have a little $$ to spend and I would like to change the vid card to something more modern. But since my mother board doesn't have any PCI express slot I don't know what to buy.
At first I was thinking of a ATI all in wonder but while browsing circuit city I found this
ATI tv wonder which would be a separate item leaving me to buy something more robust that doesn't share resources for the tv turner.
So what do you guys recommend? It would be great If I could buy it at retail stores or buy them on their sites for store pickup. |
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| Zild |
| You can get an X1950. Other cards to look at would be X1650, and 7600GS/GT. Maybe get an X1950XT. Depending on your budget of course. Personally I think you should order online from Newegg or somewhere similar because you will pay almost twice as much at a real store. |
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| Spirit5 |
I would upgrade soon, to a dual core or quad core even. You can get an Intel Q6600 Quad Core for like $299, and a new motherboard for like $100 and a GeForce 8800 GTX for $500...I'm not saying go out and do it all at once, but think about instead investing in the new Processor and motherboard and then get a GTX, perhaps when they dip below $500..like later this fall.
AGP is ancient, and although you might still be able to get some AGP cards, your money is better spent upgrading the components of your PC so you can stay in with the technology. PCI Express has been around for 3 years I believe, and it's pretty much here to stay. |
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| The Arbiter |
| Your best off investing in a new PC. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
lol. he didnt ask "what should i buy if i had all the money in the world" haha.
nvidia 7900 GS. theyre still available in AGP. dont know about the ATI brands at all but the 7900 is prob the fastest still readily available.
prices in $AU
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| zokissima |
| /\ Disagree with the above. I'd definitely go for the ATI 1950 series, the higher the better. I know they have the XT, but may also have the XTX. These are, hands down, the fastest AGP cards released. |
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| The Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
lol. he didnt ask "what should i buy if i had all the money in the world" haha.
nvidia 7900 GS. theyre still available in AGP. dont know about the ATI brands at all but the 7900 is prob the fastest still readily available.
prices in $AU
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He could have x amount seeying as he gave no specific budget.
Have you got a specific budget Cuervo? |
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| Spirit5 |
| If your a casual gamer and don't plan on playing the latest games, then sure get an AGP card, but if you want to play games like Bioshock, Crysis, The Lost Planet and the like...your much better off with investing in a new processor, new motherboard and new graphics card like I said. Sure he might not have all the money in the world but for $400 he can get either a dual core or a quad core processor with a motherboard, and always save up then for a PCI express graphics card, or even go for the GeForce 8800 GTS which he could get for like $300 or so. So roughly $700, and not something you will fork over right away. |
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| Zild |
He won't have any problems with Bioshock. Haven't checked out Crysis or Lost Planet but I'm going to assume they require similar specs. So he can probably spend like ~$150 or so and be set for a year or two.
Go for the X1950 series. |
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| Spirit5 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
He won't have any problems with Bioshock. Haven't checked out Crysis or Lost Planet but I'm going to assume they require similar specs. So he can probably spend like ~$150 or so and be set for a year or two.
Go for the X1950 series. |
He might be able to play them but at a lower resolution, Bioshock and the other games really need Dual Core plus a newer card like one from the Nvidia GeForce 8 series or the 2900 series from ATI to get the full experience of the game. Your better off just playing the XBox version then cause they consume alot of video memory and need Pixel Shader 3.0...does the X1950 have that? Just curious....know the 6 through 8 series from Nvidia have that. Bioshock wont run on my old GeForce 5950 Ultra on my old Alienware computer cause it only has Pixel Shader 2.0. Runs perfectly now with a GeForce 8800 Ultra and a Quad Core 2.66 ghz on my new computer. |
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| Zild |
| X1950 series is pretty good. You can run Bioshock on cards that are half the price at decent resolutions. |
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| Cuervo79 |
lol, ok thanx for the responses. the thing is this. First of all I don't live in the states, so getting nice hardware is kind of a pain here. I'm not really ready to upgrade my whole pc yet, since when I do I go all out. I'm a casual gamer mostly I use my PC for photo editing and the normal internet things (which works for me right now no real complaints). Once in a while I like a game and buy it but now its not as easy because of all the hardware advances. Right now I'm looking into buying C&C3, but once I downloaded the F.E.A.R. demo and was completely frustrated that I couldn't experience the game as it was intended. I'm going to Miami at the end of the year that's why I was asking for stores since most Online stuff don't do international billing or send to hotels (don't quote me I've tried a few times some time ago and got that reply) budget right now is about 250-300 US$ tops.
again thanx for the replies |
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