PCIe or AGP

[Robc1880]

I was thinking about upgrading my system to an A64 3000 with either an nforce3, 4 or Radeon xpress 200 mobo. I don't want to spend more than $300 to upgrade the video card. Is there any good PCIe cards for this price range or should I stick with AGP? SLI is a possibility but not a necessity. Will the SLI boards run ok with only 1 card? Any suggestions for a card and manufacturer are appreciated. Thanks in advance.

P.S. The game is used mainly for gaming. For example HL2 and Doom3 and Far Cry.

Xaser 3 case with 420W TT PSU
AXP2500 w\SLK900a + TT a1214 fan(11*200 at 1.85v)
9800 Pro
NF7-S v2.0
PDP DDR400 1GB(2-3-2-5)2.6v
Lite-On SOHW-832S
WD 80GB 8mb buffer caviar edition.

 

[dd_viper]

ok, first of all no nforce3 boards come with pci-e. second, there are a few you may want to consider, u could go with the 6600GT pci-e which is almost as fast as its cousin 6800 regular (second choice ~$100 more). i believe the SLI boards run fine with only one card, they just have another if u wanted to put in two

Homer: (crying) ahhh i dont remember the last time i cried like this!
Lisa: When u put ur shirt on backwards
Homer: (crying) o ya, (crying) the tag chafed my skin (crying)

 

[davemar14]

There is negligible difference between AGP and PCI Express. Video cards are not even saturating the AGP bus, let alone the PCI bus. If you want to go Athlon 64, you could get a N-force 3 board and get an AGP version of the 6600GT. Or you could wait and get a N-force 4 board with a 6600GT PCI-Express card. The last option is to stick with the set up you have, and upgrade to a 6600GT AGP.

 

[Robc1880]

viper, what I meant is that if I was going to go PCIe i was going to go with the ATI chipset or nforce4. If I was going to go with AGP then I would go Nforce3. Davemar, If i go with a 6600gt would I see a performance boost by switching from a 9800 pro or would it b best to get more money and get a high end card? Thanks for your help guys

Xaser 3 case with 420W TT PSU
AXP2500 w\SLK900a + TT a1214 fan(11*200 at 1.85v)
9800 Pro
NF7-S v2.0
PDP DDR400 1GB(2-3-2-5)2.6v
Lite-On SOHW-832S
WD 80GB 8mb buffer caviar edition.

 

[dd_viper]

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3 " target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3 </A>

Homer: (crying) ahhh i dont remember the last time i cried like this!
Lisa: When u put ur shirt on backwards
Homer: (crying) o ya, (crying) the tag chafed my skin (crying)

 

[davemar14]

The 6600GT is faster in new games such as Doom 3 and HL2. In older DirectX 8 games, such as UT2003, you will not see much of a difference. It also depends what resolution you are running. The higher the resolution, the better the 6600GT will become. But keep in mind, the higher the resoltion, the more of a CPU is needed. By 1600*1200, its all about the CPU. My advice, would be to save up and go Athlon64 and then get a high end graphics card such as a 6800GT. It all depends on your budget. In the lowest resolution, the 6600GT is 27% faster than the 9800 Pro. As the resolution goes up, the gap between the two cards grows to over 100% difference. It depends what games you will be playing.

 

[sweatlaserxp]

Since you already have a 9800 Pro, it wouldn't be cost-effective for you to upgrade to any $300 card that I know of. You should upgrade to something that is a big leap over what you currently have, such as a 6800GT or X800XT. If you want Athlon 64 and PCI-Express, you're going to have to wait, and even then a 6600GT isn't a big improvement over your 9800 Pro. In other words, if you want something that's going to clobber your current system, be prepared to spend some $$$.

<A HREF="http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/landing/landingIndex.jsp?id=dumb01&mature=accept" target="_new">DumbLand</A>

 

[Robc1880]

thanks for the info sweatlaserxp. I probably will just wait and save up a lot of money to get top of the line card like the x800xt pe or the 6800 ultra. Who knows, might get one for X-mas from the parents.

Xaser 3 case with 420W TT PSU
AXP2500 w\SLK900a + TT a1214 fan(11*200 at 1.85v)
9800 Pro
NF7-S v2.0
PDP DDR400 1GB(2-3-2-5)2.6v
Lite-On SOHW-832S
WD 80GB 8mb buffer caviar edition.

 

[sweatlaserxp]

the x800xt pe or the 6800 ultra. Who knows, might get one for X-mas from the parents.

Will your family adopt me?

<A HREF="http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/landing/landingIndex.jsp?id=dumb01&mature=accept" target="_new">DumbLand</A>

 

[Robc1880]

lol. I know that they are spending 400-600 on me and I told them that is something that I really want. Knowing how they are, I think I might be getting that with possibly a new A64 3000 and msi k8n neo2.

Xaser 3 case with 420W TT PSU
AXP2500 w\SLK900a + TT a1214 fan(11*200 at 1.85v)
9800 Pro
NF7-S v2.0
PDP DDR400 1GB(2-3-2-5)2.6v
Lite-On SOHW-832S
WD 80GB 8mb buffer caviar edition.