New card on old machine

[jewswat]

Hi, I'm thinking of upgrading my pc. Only problem is I can't figure out the best card.Here are my specs
amd 2000xp +
384 ram
gf 4 mx440 agp

I plan on upgrading from the old card to a new one but i am limited by my agp. It only has 2x and 4x (NO 8x AAAAHHH). I also don't have pci express. Keep in mind the pc was bought in 1999 or 2000(forgot which).

Please help

P.S. (for a quick laugh) This pc can somehow play halflife 2 at "looks like mud" mode. So far that, CS source, and star wars Battlefront are the most current games i have on it. All of which run at crap mode.

 

[jewswat]

please help

 

[lakedude]

what is your budget?

If you have AGP you do not have PCI-e (for the most part). There are some boards with both but they are a lot newer than your mainboard. Note a 4x/8x card will work in a 2x/4x slot (at 4x) so long as the voltage is the same, and as long as the video card is not a "agp-pro".

 

[jewswat]

I have $100 for my budget. I don't really know what to do for voltage though.
If there is anything left over afterwords I plan to buy some ram. If not oh well.... i'm really just interested in the graphics card.

 

[jewswat]

Actually, don't even worry about a budget. I han handle whatever price you throw at me.

 

[jewswat]

Also, i just found this review on newegg for a gf 6600. The system is similar to mine.

"Pros: I purchased this video card for the following system: PCCHIPS M825G Motherboard (AGP 4x, 333 bus), AMD Athlon XP 2000+, Samsung Hard drive 5400 RPM, 1GB RAM PC 2700, 350 Watt Power supply. It´s amazing what a good video card can do (gaming-wise) for a primitive system like mine. I haven´t had any problems, just a much better gaming experience. I can get over 60 fps through intense battles in Star Wars Battlefront II."

 

[ChipDeath]

A couple of points...
1)Your power supply might not be good enough. What make and wattage is it?
2)I know you said you'll spend any leftovers on RAM, but 384Mb is really not enough. Battlefield2 is completely unplayable with 512Mb. 512Mb is really the absolute minimum for gaming, 1Gb is necessary really for most newer games.

 

[parlee]

if ud like to play new games on non crap settings id suggest saving and upgrading when socket M2 comes out, once that does socket 939 will drop a lil allowing you to buy an amd64 3500 prob close to prices of a amd 64 3000 right now.. but then again if u cant wait, the 6600 is prob one of the best deals you can get, buy another 512 of value ram so that u have close to 1gb... since ull still be running at pretty low settings 1gb wont be a huge diff over 784 or whatever it is... i also believe that kid was a liar on that review, even on lowest settings hes prob in the 40's for more than 80% of the game wth 15% under 40 and 5% over 40... his comp is SEVERLY limited by the amd 2000...

 

[jewswat]

By the time the m2 comes out i'll be able to build my own. I'm just looking for something to use right now. Also, one of my friends told me today that a 4x/8x slot won't work on my 2x/4x. Something about different size or something... Plus I'm not sure how to find my psu voltage and what not. I can't find any info on it or programs to do that. Any suggustions?

My main goal: play cs source on non crap settings

P.S. I'm curious to find out whether Rome total war would run on my comp. I know shogun total war worked but i'm thinking rome is too much. (You don't have to answer this.)

Also, I just found that I could I could put an x800 pro in my comp. (this may sound silly)I was checking memory prices at Crucial for some reason and it gave me a list of graphics card upgrades that would work. Is this true? Would it work better than my current. I don't know too much about ati cards to be honest.

 

[parlee]

ati x800 is a decent card but you wont see much of an increase due to the bottle neck that ur cpu is causing, i say spend about 100 bux on a 9700pro or somthing that has similar performance, it will give close to the same performance as an x800 in that comp, i doubt ull be able to run higher than low settings though, once again due to proc and memory, which is why i suggested a complete upgrade..

 

[parlee]

if u wanna be on the safe side look for a card that says 8x/4x agp, some of the newest ones say just 8x i think, but thats nothing a lil change in voltages couldnt handle in the bios..