AGP and new motherboards to look at for new system

[speedbump1963]

I wanted to see if I can get some advice on what motherboards to look at that has both AGP 8X and PCI - 16 as well . I have looked atasrock but it has a 2 gig ram limit for both ddr and ddr2. I ask because my wife just bought me a AGP X1650 PRO 256 DDR3 card. I dont want to hurt her feelings and say please return it for PCI -16. I want to find a motherboard that will handle vista ultimate for halo3 and cryis video games. I am not a fanboy, I just want a solid upgradeable system that will rock but on a budget normal working man can afford. I got the video card so please recommend what next(preferably something upgradeable without having to change everything and start over. Please no flaming over get amd over intel because of,ect,ect......
I just want solid advice and parts that will work for my needs.
Thank you,
speedbump1963

need case
motherboard
hard drive (s)SATA
power supply and wattage
SATA dvdrw /dl
Ram
sound card
floppy drive/memory card reader
CPU / HEATSINK/cooler
lastly a security device for the case and something like a thumbdrive/fingerprint reader
( my wife telecommutes and the kids run amuck with msgame trial downloads)

MUST BE VISTA X64 ULTIMATE COMPATABLE AND LINUX 64( going to use backtrack2,nmap,etherial, ect... trying for my certified penetration specialist cert and try and telecommute as well)

all suggestions and replies are welcome! :arrow:

 

[speedbump1963]

tried to get her to exchange it but she got it online and they will only replace it because of the date of purchase. I figured since I am "stuck" with it that there should be away to still build a gaming/desktop machine. any options?

 

[andybird123]

when PCI Express first came out you could get a couple of AGP & PCI E motherboards, the only ones I remember seeing were skt939 based although there may have been a P4, either way if your looking at a new build now then it's a non-starter

face it, that graphics card won't any where near handle crysis so it has to be binned anyway, you really are better off just ignoring that you have an outdated piece of hardware laying around and starting from scratch

what sort of budget do you have?
are you interested in overclocking?

if you will overclock then the best value CPU at the moment is an E6300 or E6320, which will easily overclock to 3.2ghz-3.5ghz on air cooling (on something like a gigabyte DS3 motherboard)

if you will not overclock then it may be worth considering an AMD system as they can be good value for money at stock speeds

 

[speedbump1963]

thanks for the info. Is there still a good motherboad I can get Intel/Amd that has a AGP slot and capable of the &&% or AM2 socket. I have seen alot of Amd stuff saying Am2 from socket 939, 775,940 and such that It is very confusing. I know Intel is faster than Amd right now and I want to build a low budget system to game with and video editing hold me over until the dust settles. would prefer a dual core chip at least and something that has ddr2 ram that can handle x64 windows xp pro or vista 64. I want to try cysis and halo when it comes out on my computer. anything has to be better tham my MSI K7n2g socket A motherboard with a 2500+ cpu (1.83 ghz) with a burnt out ram socket.

I guess i am trying to say it like this;
I want a dependable board,cpu,and ram also with some cpu scalability. like a pinto - it gets you to where you need to be cheap on gas and you can party in it, then when i get the $$ I will buy a jag; hope that makes sense.

AGP slot, couple PCI slots for whatever(sound, ect, agea physics when I upgrade part by part.)
Vista and winxp pro X 64 compatable
enough ram to handle games(where they play all right, im not trying to see the color of their eyes if all I have to do is shoot them)
Dual core for x64 structure DDR 2 preffered, a good chip and cooler to recommend with enough ram slots
cpu-what to get what to avoid and a good cooler
and lastly, video encoding

thats all. I love games but I am not an extremest (with gazillions of cash) to stay current on the fastest latest flavor.just something to get by for a year or so until all the chipsets and ram and bios versions have matured enought to get a really good system then.
All replies and advice is very welcome and appriciated,
from what I have read there is alot of people who can recomend something along this avenue.

speedbump1963

 

[andybird123]

There is only 1 AGP on AM2 motherboard that I know of and that is the ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA (this is not a dual graphics mobo, it has AGP only, no PCIe)... good luck finding one for sale.

Also be aware, no AGP graphics card will be any good for running Crysis, you really are flogging a dead horse on that one.

You have 2 requirements you're stating;

1) AGP
2) Vista / Crysis

The 2 are mutually exclusive, if you really want one then you can't have the other. Buying an AGP motherboard is the worst purchasing decision you are ever likely to make.

 

[bumster]

I am afraid the others are correct on just going with a MB with PCIe, but on the other hand I also believe that there is still some life left in AGP if you get yourself a decent MB to make use of the video card that you are currently 'stuck' with. I have one of those AGP/PCIe boards and later discovered that it only supported up to AGP 2.0 and not the 3.0 version that my X850XT is. So a few months later I was able to purchase a X1950pro and the difference is amazing. The frame rates between say a X1650AGP and a X1650PCIe are almost identical but frame rates are not everything. In one of my favorite games, F.E.A.R., the frame rates were not that much higher but the pausing while loading the next room or level was all but gone! I say try to do with what you have for now with a decent MB and then see how it does when games like Crysis come out. You may be happy with the performance at 1024 or 1280 like me. I am not that big on having the game cranked as high as the monitor will allow anyway, smoother is better for me. I remember being impressed with how well Far Cry ran on old TNT2 video cards back then, I hope their new game engine does the same.

EDIT: Also you may want to consider watching for combo deals with the Pentium D805 that I have seen for as low as $79! This will also give you an upgrade path to the Core 2 later. In looking around it looks like Intel might be the better choice for AGP right now.

 

[macer1]

gj bumster these ppl come on here but only offer criticism instead of help.

speedbump1963 there is A LOT of room left on agp, its only limitation is 2 things. SLI/crossfire and manufacture. the last being agp was phased out for no reason.

"There are those who will question the longevity of an AGP card with more and more DirectX 10 cards arriving. However, I don't believe this will prevent the X1950 PRO from remaining a good gaming card for a year or two.

Those of us who remember ushering in the DirectX 9 era will no doubt recall how many people were convinced that their DirectX 8 cards would be useless in six months; history showed that would not be the case, with many game engines supporting DirectX 8 code paths even today. Remember, developers have to make games that run on the lowest common denominator hardware in order to reach the largest buying audience. To require a DirectX 10 card would limit a developer's potential market so much that it would be suicide until there is a sizable installed base."
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/02/01/agp-platform-analysis/page11.html

and the best of the best, FROM A PAID PROFESSIONAL

"You will see sizable gains with powerful AGP cards like the X1950 PRO, while you do not need to upgrade to a PCI express system to have a viable gaming machine."
You will see sizable gains with powerful AGP cards like the X1950 PRO,

sorry guys but your stupidity of the only path is to upgrade to pci-e wont cut it.

 

[Cabletwitch]

Macer1, its all very well stating that and all, but the fact is, there are next to NO boards out there that have both AGP and PCI-e. So, its not really stupidity thats causing this, its the industry deciding its time to change interfaces to a more standardised form thats done it.

AGP might still have enough grunt left in it, but for how long? Cards now are designed with PCI-e in mind, and to run on AGP requires a bridge chip, which consumes more power, and generates more heat than the standard interation of the card. This alone is a good reason not to stick to AGP.

The last reason is future bandwidth. PCI-e has bucket loads more, and this will increasingly become more important as the GFX industry progresses its designs. Eventually, you'd HAVE to upgrade your mobo to move to PCI-e, and you'd only moan about it then as well.

Oh, and one extra last reason... You dont need the extra circuitry on the chipset to support yet another bus when you already have a PCI-e controller. Again, less power consumption, less heat, more win.


The very final point? Well, its always a bad idea to call people stupid without actually having made a coherant argument in favour of something, especially when all you've done is paste some random snippets of articles that seem to confirm your own viewpoint without providing other data and information to back it up. I'm off now to find out things like bandwidth and wattage comparison data to back up my claims here... I suggest you do the same, then we can look at it from a more professional angle, no?


EDIT: 10 mins of research has yielded a few fun facts here... lets review...

AGP
------

Style: Parallel
Width: 32 bits
Speed: up to 2133 MB/s (8x)
Half-Duplex - Comminication in one direction at a time
Slot provides 25W of power
Graphics cards only


PCI-e
-------

Style: Serial
Width: 1 bit (Per channel)
Speed: Up to 8GB/s (32x)
Full-Duplex - Bi-directional communication at all times
Slot provides up to 75W of power
Universal support for any PCI-e device

Hmmm..... PCI-e does seem to have the advantage here... AND its not just a revamp of a legacy bus either. Also, its providing a nice universal connection standard for connecting pretty much all internal cards... provides more power... faster... more future proof... whats not to like?


Whoops, almost forgot the point of this whole post... silly me....

Speedbump, you'll be doing yourself a VERY big favour by making sure you go for a PCI-e motherboard now. Not only are you future-proofing (as if thats really a viable term for THIs industry) your rig, you'll also have support for the latest processors and technologies, which will certainly be of benefit should you really want to go ahead and run Vista. The only slight issue you might come across is drivers, but those will be sorted fairly soon. I'm still running an AGP rig now, and its starting to feel slow and clunky in comparison to the newer family rig I built recently. I've got me a Core 2 Duo machine just waiting to be built. You couldnt do C2D with AGP, so take the plunge and go for it.

 

[bumster]

CableTwitch,

It doesn't matter how long AGP will be around because what he has right now is an AGP card. Yes it would be nice to have a MB that supports both in order to have the option of switching later but I know from experience that new AGP cards will not work in that type of board.

He was asking for suggestions on what to purchase and that is why I suggested looking for a combo deal with a Pentium D805 with an AGP slot for now, and that will be a drastic improvement over what he currently has and it is dual core with x64 support.

He also asked for a good HSF and I suggest avoiding the one that comes in the boxed set of the D805, it is loud and not very efficient, try this one instead. This CPU is highly overclockable as well!

And since he is looking at upgrading later on when he has the $$, he can just buy an inexpensive MB for now that supports DDR2.

I agree that the name calling should not be happening but what did you have to offer as a suggestion for his current situation?

 

[Cabletwitch]

Good points.

My suggestion is for him to return the card, get the PCI-e version, and go for the PCI-e route now. Yes, its more awkward than just getting a combo board now, but it does mean he wont be buying a new GFX card again in the near future.

My philosphy is to get the BEST you can afford at the time. While it might be expensive, if you've done the research properly, you can build a rig that will last a considerable amount of time, and offer a fairly long upgrade path. AGP doesnt HAVE an upgrade path, so buying into a product that has this, to me certainly, is spending money on something that wont be used much.

Granted, this might not be te case at hand, and if the OP really wants to go for a combo board, then its his own perogative, and I wish him luck. I cant think of any boards to recommend currently, and I probably wont, as my own opinions go against that. Feel free to post some models of motherboards though, I'd be interested to see how they stand up to better equipped models.

And since he is looking at upgrading later on when he has the $$, he can just buy an inexpensive MB for now that supports DDR2.

Hmmm, that kind of defies the point of getting a decent board now. It would save a lot of faffing about in the future to get a decent platform now, then add to it later, rather than having to replace the core components everytime you want to upgrade. This is why I advocate moving directly to a PCI-e platform, as the mobo will also support DDR2, and will be futre-proofed to some degree.

However, cost is always an issue, and the final decision isnt mine. So I'll just wait and see what the final verdict on the board is for now.

EDIT: One last thing that escaped my attention thus far... there is NO way that card is going to run Crysis in anything above low on anything... at the time of typing, I cant even remember if its a DX10 card? If not, forget Crysis... you'd need a better card anyway.

 

[bumster]

tried to get her to exchange it but she got it online and they will only replace it because of the date of purchase. I figured since I am "stuck" with it that there should be away to still build a gaming/desktop machine. any options?

He already stated that he cannot return the card.

And, no it is not a DX10 card but Crysis was primarily developed for DX9 and then adapted to DX10. Most reviews state there is very little difference seen between the two versions of that game.

 

[andybird123]

And, no it is not a DX10 card but Crysis was primarily developed for DX9 and then adapted to DX10. Most reviews state there is very little difference seen between the two versions of that game.

Er, no. Crysis is just about the first major release that was designed from the ground up as DX10, with DX9 being a port. There are no reviews of it yet as it's still not slated for release till september. All of the pre-release info has been for the DX10 version, no one has seen the DX9 version yet.

Actually, I stand corrected, I've just found a load of DX10 - DX9 comparison shots and they look vastly better on DX10 imo.

None of which changes the fact that the X1650 won't run crysis on anything other than all minimum settings, so you may as well just re-play Far Cry over and over.

 

[Cabletwitch]

tried to get her to exchange it but she got it online and they will only replace it because of the date of purchase. I figured since I am "stuck" with it that there should be away to still build a gaming/desktop machine. any options?

Hmmm, I missed that part, my eyeballs arent working 100% it seems...

Thats a shame, as it really does limit him to getting an GP rig after all... but there IS the possibility of Ebaying the card, or finding someone here who wants it for an old HTPC system.

As for Crysis... well, I knew there was a DX9 component to it, yes, but it'll still look like arse on that card. I guess this is a lesson learned in technology, and now its a course in damage control. I still cant think of any decent dual bus boards, but thats because I happen to have a headache the size of the Eiger right now, which is impeding thought.

I'll watch now, and see what else happens in regard to that board. Good luck!

(Woot, 100 posts!) :tongue: :trophy:

 

[andybird123]

it may help if the OP specified what his budget is right now, and how much he might be able to afford in say 6-12 months

If he spends $400 on building an AGP PC now, then plans on saving $800 to build a PCI system in 1 year, he may realise he's better off saving the extra over the next few months and buying PCIe sooner because his total outlay over the next 12 months would still be lower going PCIe as soon as he can afford, rather than effectively wasting $400 now.

If he plans on spending up to $1000 for a decent gaming PC then writing off the cost of the $80 AGP card just as part of the cost of the new PC won't seem so bad.

Where as if he plans on spending $300 now to use his AGP card, and $400 in over a years time, we know that this guy is always planning on having a bare minimum gaming PC and accepts that he'll always be playing games with every setting set to low res and minimum detail.

His aims are fundamentally at odds, he wants old tech but also wants a good upgrade path (and specifying Vista with Crysis would indicate he wants to be able to get a DX10 card because only a fool would play DX9 games on vista).

 

[bumster]

Well, as I stated earlier I hope that Crytek does as good of a job with their new game engine as they did with the old one in having it perform very well on older generation hardware. Far Cry ran very well on older DX8 hardware and still looked very good when compared to BF1942 which did not support older cards that did not have T&L. I hope this new game does just as well!

 

[andybird123]

Well, as I stated earlier I hope that Crytek does as good of a job with their new game engine as they did with the old one in having it perform very well on older generation hardware. Far Cry ran very well on older DX8 hardware and still looked very good when compared to BF1942 which did not support older cards that did not have T&L. I hope this new game does just as well!

I really don't think that's right... even the listed minimum spec for Far Cry is minimum DirectX9.0b graphics card... I remember games needing Hardware T&L a long time before far cry came out.

Yeah, doing a search, FarCry is a 2004 DX9 game, where as the first game I remember specifically requiring Hardware T&L was I-War2 that came out in 2001 and that was DX8

 

[Saravian]

Here's another option to the Asrock ( http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813157107 ) you mentioned:

It's an MSI board for AM2 socket, and while it is limited to 2 GB memory also, it could be a great option paired w/ an x2-3600+ ( http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103046 ) if you're looking for a stopgap system [e.g. until Penryn/DDR3/Barcy(if ever) come out].

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813130064

Given your continued use of AGP, you won't be on the bleeding edge. However, this will give you a fairly functional gaming PC that takes advantage of the unexchangeable card you've got now. Good luck!

 

[masop]

I wanted to see if I can get some advice on what motherboards to look at that has both AGP 8X and PCI - 16 as well . I have looked atasrock but it has a 2 gig ram limit for both ddr and ddr2. I ask because my wife just bought me a AGP X1650 PRO 256 DDR3 card. I dont want to hurt her feelings and say please return it for PCI -16. I want to find a motherboard that will handle vista ultimate for halo3 and cryis video games. I am not a fanboy, I just want a solid upgradeable system that will rock but on a budget normal working man can afford. I got the video card so please recommend what next(preferably something upgradeable without having to change everything and start over. Please no flaming over get amd over intel because of,ect,ect......
I just want solid advice and parts that will work for my needs.
Thank you,
speedbump1963

need case
motherboard
hard drive (s)SATA
power supply and wattage
SATA dvdrw /dl
Ram
sound card
floppy drive/memory card reader
CPU / HEATSINK/cooler
lastly a security device for the case and something like a thumbdrive/fingerprint reader
( my wife telecommutes and the kids run amuck with msgame trial downloads)

MUST BE VISTA X64 ULTIMATE COMPATABLE AND LINUX 64( going to use backtrack2,nmap,etherial, ect... trying for my certified penetration specialist cert and try and telecommute as well)

all suggestions and replies are welcome! :arrow:

Well, from what I've seen, the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA Socket 775 Board along with the Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (highly overclockable with air cooling) processor makes a decent "in-between" upgrade and still gives room for growth until you're able to take the plunge and go all out. It includes the PCI-E x16 slot if you wanted to go with PCI-E later down the road too. According to ASRock's web site, the board is Vista and Vista 64-Bit Compliant. The cost for those 2 parts is under $185 shipped from NewEgg. See the links below...

ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA LGA 775 VIA PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Cost $61.99 + $6.13 S/H = $68.12

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail
Cost $115.50 (Free 3 Day Shipping)


I'd recommend that option if you really are stuck with AGP for the time being. Yeah, it has the 2GB limit but that seems to be your best bet other than going the PCI-E route. Besides, 2GB is good for now for either XP or Vista. From what I read, the memory market is expected to bottom out sometime later this month and then remain in a plateau so to speak for several months before it recovers and goes back up. It is definitely a good time to pickup some memory in the coming days/weeks.

BTW, have you considered putting the X1650 on CraigsList and taking the cash and buying a PCI-E model since the company won't allow your wife to return it? Just a thought.

-- MaSoP