FX5700 upgrade advice sought

[octaglider]

I'm considering buying an FX5700 Ultra to replace my GeForce 2 Ultra which came with my PC nearly 3 years ago. My current ASUS A7M266 mobo is only AGPx4 so I know I won't get the full benefit but would I see a marked improvement over the GeForce 2? My preferred gaming is flight sims.


I've upgraded virtually everything in the PC in the last 3 years except for the graphics. The current configuration is: Athlon XP2100+, 1GB PC2100 RAM, Audigy 2 Ex, Antec 400W PSU, Asus 52x24x52 CD-RW, DVD etc.

I don't intend changing the mobo at the moment as I'm waiting for a 64 bit version of Longhorn with an AMD 64 bit chip and the new BTX boards.

 

[pitsi]

When I upgraded from my GeForce 2 GTS to a Radeon 9500 Pro (which is very similar to the upgrade you intend to do) I saw a significant performance increase in games, not to mention image quality. I believe it's a good buy because by spending not very much, you will get a decent graphics card that performs very good in current and upcoming games. By the time you will get a new mobo, PCI Express graphics cards will be out so you would have to upgrade anyway.

Btw, don't worry about your mobo not supporting AGP 8x. There is no difference between 4x and 8x.

 

[simwiz2]

You may be able to get a FX5900 SE/XT for only slightly more $ than the 5700U, and the 5900 is much faster.

 

[c0d1f1ed]

I believe all BTX boards are supposed to have PCI-Express so any expensive AGP card would be a waste of money.

Anyway, the FX 5700 is much faster than what you have now. You will especially be able to play with high anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, which is very noticable for flight simulators.