PCI-E ????

[Seth064]

Lo there....

Right am buildng a new pc very soon, and am just wondering If I should get a PCI-E MOtherboard or should I get another AGP one.
I have looked up many sites including this one to see wat the advantages of PCI-E were, I wasnt satisfied by the answers that I got...then I noticed that these articles were wrote way back at the start of last year.
I was for getting-
**Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI nForce4 SLI Skt939 1000FSB, DDR400, SATA2, RAID, 2 x GB LAN, Wireless LAN, 8ch Audio, USB2, IEEE 1394B, ATX
**AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester 64 bit 512k L2 Cache Retail inc.fan Skt 939 (3 yr.warr.)
**2x Samsung Original 512MB DDR400 PC3200 RAM
**Powercolor ATI Radeon X800 XL 256MB DDR3, PCI-E, DVI, TV Out Retail
**19" Iiyama LS902UTG
**Raidmax Cobra Black 450W dual fan +2 fans +USB2.0 +audio +window +UK power lead.

Back to my First question....Should I upgrade to PCI-E now or shall I wait until I upgrade again which wont be for another 1 or 2 years time?

Its nice to be important,
but,
Its more important to be Nice

 

[cleeve]

If you have a really good AGP videocard, then upgrade to an AGP board.

If you don't have a good AGP videocard, PCI-e is the way to go, with an eye to the future.

PCI-e is better, but not so much that it's worth the upgrade just for it's own sake.

The real reason to go PCI-e is future upgradability, as AGP will slowly be phased out over the next 4 years or so and be more expensive to buy in the future, and PCI-e will become cheaper. Although right now, PCI-e cards may be a bit more expensive depending on what you're looking for.

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9700 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(o/c 332/345)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>3200+</b></font color=red> <i>(Barton 2500+ o/c 400 FSB)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>5,354</b>

 

[Seth064]

Well my current system isnt good at all, for future games anyway. It was just a pre-build from PC World, twas a great pc 2 years ago but know its crap.
**Motherboard is bad, all I really know about it is that its only capable of x4 AGP and 233mzh RAM.
**P4 2.53Ghz
**512mb 233mzh
**Ati Radeon 9200Pro 128mb (intially came with a Gforce4 MX440)

So what your saying is, if I upgrade my motherboard now to PCI-E then it would be future proof for quite a while and all I would have to do is upgrade my grahics card every so oftern (not too often ) and possibly my RAM?

Btw is the Grahpics card I have chosen good for its price of £235 or is there any other PCI-E ones for a cheaper price but better performance. I would like to stick with ATI as I mainly play HL2/Source based games and from wat i know ATI is better for th, atm anyway.

I am buying all these products from Microdirect.co.uk


Its nice to be important,
but,
Its more important to be Nice

 

[cleeve]

If you have £235 to spend on the graphics card alone, that's very good.

The X800 PRO is available from that website you mentioned for £239 (excluding VAT) and would be an awesome card. That's the AGP version though...

That site has a nice PCI-e X700 PRO for £115... and a real nice X800XT for £277 you might want to consider if you can up the ante.

If I were you, and you have that kind of scratch for a new system, I'd go PCI-e, although it looks likt the PCI-e cards are a bit more expensive. Depends how much longevity you want in the platform I guess.

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9700 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(o/c 332/345)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>3200+</b></font color=red> <i>(Barton 2500+ o/c 400 FSB)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>5,354</b>

 

[Seth064]

Well, am planning on doing a full upgrade now (mobo, cpu, ram, gc, monitor). I dont see me doing another full upgrade for another 2-3 years atleast....in between them 2-3 years I would possibly upgrade Grahpics card, ram and cpu. I wont be upgrading my Mobo again. So you think I shoiuld stick with getting a PCI-E mobo as it will be more future proof?
Also should I get a Nvidia card that has Pixel Shader 3.0 or should I wait for another year untill ATI bring out a card that supports it?

Its nice to be important,
but,
Its more important to be Nice