Hi all, especially you comp. techies... I am just a player with very limited knowledge of comps. My question is: Will this card from Gainward fit my AGP slot? The card is: Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GS SILENT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP). My specs are: Athlon 2400, 1G RAM, NVidia Geforce 6200 (256MB) AGP. I need to be sure it will fit before I order it. Can I assume that AGP slots are all standard size or does this new card need a different size AGP slot?
I really need this upgrade to be able to play games like Oblivion and Tom Clancy's GRAW. Any other advice or suggestions would also be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

That CPU is a MASSIVE bottleneck but yes. It will fit

Hi, mad... great but what do you mean by "bottleneck"? Will the upgrade still help those games play without any screen tearing etc. ?

[quote="prozac26"]

Hi, mad... great but what do you mean by "bottleneck"? Will the upgrade still help those games play without any screen tearing etc. ?
A bottlenech, is a part that will hold back the true power of another part.

So, your CPU will hold back the cards performance.

Well, it might, it doesn't mean it will. For gaming, I don't think there'll be a huge bottleneck, since games rather have a good video card over a good CPU.

I suggest you go little lower end, like a X800GTO, or 6800GS. If you can get a X800XL, that should fit you perfect.

Thanks prozac ... I am frantically reading up on the diff. reviews of the cards. At present I am financially in the position to get a really high card like the 7800. May well not be in that position for long..lol. Some stores are iffy on returning cards that have been unpacked etc., so that's why I want to make sure re. performance. Besides, the 6800 cards seem to be on the minimal side of performance for Oblivion and def. for GRAW. Will have to check out the X800XL for AGP. I played the GRAW demo but the screen tearing was absymal.

Screen tearing is nothing to do with the speed of your system, its caused by having "sync every frame" or "enable vsync" options turned off in games. A slow system would cause low FPS, i.e. jumpy graphics like a slideshow rather than smooth fluid graphics.

Even though your CPU isn't the most up to date, I think its fast enough.

Most games are held back by the graphics card, the CPU isn't a limiting factor generally. The Athlon 2400 only has a 266Mhz FSB so it doesn't have masses of memory bandwidth which could be a bottlneck in itself.

Faster Socket A CPUs are getting difficult to get hold of these days and if you had PCI express motherboard you'd be able to get a cheaper/faster graphics card than the 7800 GS, AGP cards are expensive for what you get. If might be getting towards time to upgrade to a PCI Express system, you could get better overall performance that way for the money, something to think about

An AthlonXP 2400+ isn't that much of a bottleneck, but an X800 XL or 6800 GT would be a better fit... cheaper, too.

Ok Guys, thanks for all your input. I have ordered this card: Gainward BLISS GeForce 6800 GS "Golden Sample" 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP). I think the 512 MB will help better than 256MB. Hope this does the trick. I don't really need perfect "top of the range" graphics . i am very content to run at 1024/768. I sure hope I got the right card. I sweat to think I might have blown it. Tell me I didn't....lol
Cards just keep getting more expensive by the week.

That's a good AGP card for your system, there's even a chance you might be able to unlock some pipelines and make it a full 16-pipe 6800 GT, which has comperable performance to a stock 7800 GS..

Thanks Cleeve. Stopped sweating. Re. unlocking the pipelines (I saw that the 7800 has 20 and drooled) I am a total noob. Would love to but hesitate to put my grubby little fingers on it. Unless you can suggest a simple, foolproof way to do it. Many thanks for your confirmation.

I don't want to burst anyones bubble but are both those cards 3v? Is that MB he has only 1.5v? Oh wait he never told us what his MB is...

If he has a 6200 in there, it's at least an AGP 4x slot. The 6800 will work fine, or any 8x AGP card for that matter.

As far as fitting, the layout of the motherboard and the case that you have can make a difference. I bet the 7800 is longer than your current 6200, so you want to make sure that nothing will get in the way of the extra length. I built a cheapo MicroATX computer recently that won't allow a standard length AGP card and an optical drive at the same time without cutting out part of a metal bracket. I also remember some older motherboards that had capacitors in the way of some longer AGP cards.

It's super easy to unlock. Download Rivatuner. Install and then it's as easy

as clicking a few checkmarks, then rebooting. If you manage to unlock yours

without artifacts, it will make a BIG difference. Give it a try. Once you DL it

and install, give a shout and i'll be glad to explain how to do it.

It's super easy to unlock. Download Rivatuner. Install and then it's as easy

as clicking a few checkmarks, then rebooting. If you manage to unlock yours

without artifacts, it will make a BIG difference. Give it a try. Once you DL it

and install, give a shout and i'll be glad to explain how to do it. Lookin' good. Thanks, 1Tanker. Will do. take care.

Don't ever bother asking that, 3v slots and 3v AGP cards are from the last century.