MSI MX4000-T64 graphics card compatible with AGP4x 1.5v?

[magreen]

Hello

I'm looking at buying an MSI MX4000-T64 graphics card and I need to know that it will work 100% in my motherboard, which only supports AGP4x 1.5v video cards. Can anyone help me figure that out? My motherboard is an Asus P4SDR-VM.

Also, while I'm asking, the reason I want to buy a video card is because my computer's performance is terrible. I don't play any 3D games at all -- I just use it for office applications and the occasional DivX movie, but I like to have a bunch of windows open at once, and switching between apps is slow as molasses. I think it's the shared memory from the onboard video that's killing it. It's a P4A Northwood 1.8A OC'd to 2.0 with 512 MB of PC100 SDRAM, running Win2000 SP4. I know it's bottlenecked with only SDRAM, but Sandra reports it as having 300MB/s memory bandwidth. So does Everest. That seems too low even for PC100, no? Am I right that adding a standalone graphics card, even a simple one like this one, will significantly speed up my overall system?

Thanks
Michael

 

[Crashman]

All AGP video cards introduced since 2001 have supported 4x/1.5v, including the latest model.

 

[magreen]

Hmm. I read an article which says that though AGP speeds are backwards compatible, the voltages are not, and the AGP8x card must specifically be enabled to work with 1.5v, which not all of them are.

The article I read is here: http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/10,63.html

I've also read a few posts in various places of people saying their AGP8x card won't work on their 4x motherboard, but their friend's AGP8x card did work on their motherboard. The general advice I saw was find out before you buy whether the 8x card will really work with your 4x motherboard. Am I misinformed?

thanks
Michael

 

[Crashman]

You're completely misinformed, by wrong information. The article you should be refering to is this one:

http://www.sysopt.com/tutorials/article.php/3532496

All current AGP cards default to 1.5v. A manufacturer would have to be truely stupid to cut 20%-80% of their sales (depending on the model) by manufacturing the card improperly.

3.3v and 0.8v modes are forced, current cards that support those voltages do it by auto switching.

 

[magreen]

Great! Thanks for the info. That just made my search for the right video card a whole lot easier.

Michael