Upgrade from MX420....

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rabidbunny

rabidbunny

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I recently decided on building my own system, but I will be building it later on this year and I want to play some of the latest games. So that forces me to upgrade my current 3year old pc. It's a Dell Dimension 4550 with:
Intel 845PE motherboard
Pentium 4 @2.4ghz
1gb and 256 mb ram
60gb WD harddrive
GeForce MX 420

I want to upgrade my graphics card but i'm not sure what to get exactly. I was going to get a BFG 6200 OC, but I found out I can add a better card than that. Now, I have an AGP 4x slot but it will take an 8x card according to the motherboard specs. I was considering an ATI X1600x but wasn't sure because I don't think my mobo has a powercable for the card. Any suggestions as to what I should do would be helpful. Thanx in advance.
 
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mdd1963

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Another poster mentioned that X850XT units are down to about $160 or so now...

very good performance for a reasonable price..

Another alternative will be an AGP 6600GT, around $130....

(Most AGP cards I have seen use simple 4 pin molexes that hard drives require, and you can use one of those for aux power input)


Either card will be light years ahead of a GF2 mx card!
 
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unsmart

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The x1600 is a good choice if you plan on using the system for a htpc after the upgrade. I may be wrong but I think the agp still has vivo. Other then that it's not the best performer out there. the x8xx gto will beat it. the power adapter is in the box with any card I've ever got.
 
Anoobis

Anoobis

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The ATI X1600 that's available in AGP is the PRO version, not he XT (unless it's changed since last week). I'd say either the X1600PRO or the 6600GT. My 6600GTs an XFX AGP and it used a regular molex connector that PSUs have. I believe the X1600PRO uses the different style so you may want to do some research before buying on. However, you should be able to walk in to any PC shop and pick up an adapter or just order one when you buy the card.
 
nottheking

nottheking

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As some of the other posters have already said, any of those cards would be leaps and bounds beyond what you get with your MX 420. However, I'd personally avoid the 6200, since it DOES have a 64-bit memory interface.

If you're having concerns about having a power adapter, note that AGP graphics cards, if they require a power connector, use a standard "molex" 4-pin power connector, the same that you use for your hard drives and CD/DVD drives. If you don't have one, even OEM packages should come with a splitter, that will allow you to use one of your cables for both a drive and the card. (though concerns over such a power supply perhaps being too weak will still apply...)

Either the GeForce 6600GT or Radeon x1600pro, I believe, will require such a connection, and depending on the application, they will be close to equal. Likewise, in pure power, a plain radeon X800, about the same price, (also listed as an X800GTO 128MB; both have the same core, though the GTO has 1000MHz memory and the plain @700MHz) would easily beat either of them, but without SM 3.0 support, and will always have 128MB of video RAM, while the X1600 could have 256MB.
 
rabidbunny

rabidbunny

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Now, i am willing to pay roughly 160-170 max for a graphics card. My current psu is @250 watts, but the max load is about 345 (Dell's psu's are rated at a different level not max wattage).

I don't need anything special, just something that will play the latest games at roughly ,1024x768 resolution with moderate other effects. I can and have lived with the jaggies on my current card. Nvidia or ATI will work. doesn't matter.

question: will a 256 card on average perform better than a 128 card for average games??? I know it depends on the card's clock and ram speed, but what is considered very decent as far as speed goes?
 
cleeve

cleeve

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question: will a 256 card on average perform better than a 128 card for average games???
Click to expand...

On average, no.

Look firstly for chip type (i.e. X1800, 7900, 7600, etc), secondly for memory bus (256-bit or 128-bit), thirdly for speeds (mhz)

The very last performance consideration is amount of RAM on the card. It hardly matters at all.
 
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mdd1963

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"question: will a 256 card on average perform better than a 128 card for average games??? "

Depends on the game.....

If clock speeds and mem interface is the same, they will perform roughly the same as long as you do not exceed the framebuffer size limitation of the 128 card...; which generally means less features/eye candy, medium settings, etc...

Considering most of the newest games (FEAR, COD2, BF2) have such pretty eye candy and textures, I'd really get a 256m card if possible...
 
Anoobis

Anoobis

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Well, sorry...I should correct myself. It does come in AGP. I thought it didn't, but after some research I was able to find in AGP. Unfortunately it is very expensive, over $300.00 in most places I could find. It's not worth investing that kind of money in an AGP system these days.

Again, sorry for the error.
 
cleeve

cleeve

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Considering most of the newest games (FEAR, COD2, BF2) have such pretty eye candy and textures, I'd really get a 256m card if possible...
Click to expand...

Still, keep it in perspective.

There are 256mb versions of the Radeon 9200 out there;
completely useless compared to even a 64mb Geforce4Ti 4200.

What good is 256mb if the 9200 can only manage 5fps at high detail?

The amount of memory should be the last concern, not one of the first concerns.
 
nottheking

nottheking

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Now, i am willing to pay roughly 160-170 max for a graphics card. My current psu is @250 watts, but the max load is about 345 (Dell's psu's are rated at a different level not max wattage).

I don't need anything special, just something that will play the latest games at roughly ,1024x768 resolution with moderate other effects. I can and have lived with the jaggies on my current card. Nvidia or ATI will work. doesn't matter.

question: will a 256 card on average perform better than a 128 card for average games??? I know it depends on the card's clock and ram speed, but what is considered very decent as far as speed goes?
Click to expand...
Well, memory size matters little to performance. As noted, the core is the most important, followed by memory bandwidth.

Memory bandwidth is the bus width (64, 128, or 256 bit) multiplied by the RAM clock speed. Hence, a Radoen X1600XT or GeForce 7600GT, which have 128-bit memory busses, get the same bandwidth using their 1400MHz RAM as a plain X800 gets with its 700MHz RAM, as the X800 has a 256-bit memory bus. All three cards have ~22.4GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

The least important factor is the memory size. It only affects performance if you decide to max out the textures, AND use anisotropic filtering at the same time. Then it determined whether or not you'll sustain a nasty hit to performance. In this case, 256MB is only necessary for some of the latest games, and 128MB does fine. 512MB is only necessary, it seems, for Doom3, (on occasion) 3Dmark06, and Oblivion.
 
rabidbunny

rabidbunny

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Ok. So now that I know that it's the clock speed that matters, What would you guys recommend for a 256 card? I want this card to work for the latest games on my current AGP 4x system and be within the $170 range. The speed doesn't really matter for me, but I want a card that can utilize AA (not at max necessarily) and other effects at moderate quality and has good Fps. I don't have a newer monitor so I can't turn the resolution up past 1024x768 unless I want some distortion.

Brand doesn't matter, but I would like to have a retail version over an OEM card. But it all depends on what is available for what I would like.


Muchas gracias!!
 
rabidbunny

rabidbunny

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Question::

Which should be faster on a GPU: the core clock speed or the memory speed??

And what is considered average for gaming and very good for speed?????
 
nottheking

nottheking

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Ok. So now that I know that it's the clock speed that matters, What would you guys recommend for a 256 card? I want this card to work for the latest games on my current AGP 4x system and be within the $170 range. The speed doesn't really matter for me, but I want a card that can utilize AA (not at max necessarily) and other effects at moderate quality and has good Fps. I don't have a newer monitor so I can't turn the resolution up past 1024x768 unless I want some distortion.

Brand doesn't matter, but I would like to have a retail version over an OEM card. But it all depends on what is available for what I would like.


Muchas gracias!!
Click to expand...
Up to $170US? This is the point where I wistfuly think that if you only had a PCI-express motherboard... But enough of that. You've got some slim pickings.

Probably, juding from what I've seen, (and in concurrence with Cleeve's "short list") your best power bet would be the Radoen X800GTO. It's fairly pricy there, yes, but quite powerful. In theory, there are also GeForce 6800GS cards, which would have the added edge of SM 3.0 support, (you're not going above 1024x768 anyway, so you can afford to spend power on advanced shaders and HDR) but all of the sub-$200US ones for AGP I've seen are sold out.

Either way, you're getting a decent core, with 256MB of GDDR3, clocked to 1000MHz or so; the memory bus is 256 bits wide. So either one, even if they might lack a bit in the core, (having 350 or 400MHz cores with only 12 pixel units) they've got plenty of bandwidth, a good thing for using AA.
 
rabidbunny

rabidbunny

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Well,, once i have enough $$$ to build my pc this summer I will have an SLi capable computer with an AMD 4000 sandiego..

So, I was lookin on newegg and noticed that I could get an ATi x1300 pro that's within my price range, but I don't know if it will work with my current psu. (250 watts) It's within my price range, (165 $$ us). but im not so sure. Im wondering if I can find a decent Nvidia card that would do the same as the x1300 pro. Any suggestions??
 
rabidbunny

rabidbunny

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Which one would support my computer the best though???

I want a card that will work once I get and install the drivers, no fussing around with internal cords etc....
 
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