9600 Pro compatible with old(ish) Sony?

[Amorphus]

I consider myself pretty proficient with hardware, but this entails some white-sheet sort of facts that I can't recall right now.

Basically, a friend of mine wants a new video card, since his TNT2 isn't quite cutting it for UT2k4. I don't have access to his computer, else I would just take a look.

Anyways, I know AGP1.0 was 3.3v to the card, and all later revisions (in which the 9600 pro partakes) takes 2.5v. Now, since his mobo (from an old Sony prefab) takes an nVidia TNT2, does it (the motherboard) give 3.3v or 2.5v to the video card?

It would be really embarassing if the mid-range card I told him would be the solution to all his graphics problems came one day and it was incompatble

So basically, is this motherboard compatible.


Thanks all. :wine:

 

[CombatChuk]

I believe that the Video card will be able to handle it. Some TNT2 Ultras were AGP 4X so I think it will be fine.

 

[Amorphus]

Originally posted by: CombatChuk
I believe that the Video card will be able to handle it. Some TNT2 Ultras were AGP 4X so I think it will be fine.

As long as none of them were AGP 1x, then I'm set.

 

[3chordcharlie]

The m64 tnt2 cards (worst model, but not the 'original') were 4x as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Amorphous, if you mentioned the CPU, motherboard and/or chipset, then we could probably tell you what AGP speeds, and therefore what voltages, that board supports. (Or, possibly, you could look at the manual??? Try running DXDIAG.EXE, it should show you the name and model of the motherboard on the first screen, and then you can use that to google for a mobo manual.)

You could also install PowerStrip or WCPUID to tell you what system chipset, and what AGP mode(s) that your mobo supports. (PowerStrip has a lot of useful video-card features like this, highly-recommended.)

If you want a really cheap solution to play UT2K4, I recently purchased a Radeon 9200 (non-SE, 128-bit memory) 64MB model for $40, and it plays most UT2K4 levels at something slightly-faster than 30fps in most cases, at 1024x768, without any AA/AF enabled, on an AMD XP2000+ with 768MB of RAM. If you can afford something more, then I would recommend looking for a GF4 Ti4200-8x model with 128MB of memory, or a PowerColor Radeon 9550 (essentially a 9600 with a slightly down-clocked core, core/mem speeds are equal to a Radeon 9200, except that the 9600 core is DX9 compliant).

I can't recommend the 9200 to play FarCry though, the demo is a slideshow on my machine, even at 800x600. So if you want to play that game too, look for something a bit more powerful. If that machine was only enough to have a TNT2 stock, then it's probably too slow CPU-wide anyways to play FarCry, so that might not even be an issue.

 

[Tostada]

Ugh.

Not to be harsh, but it only hurts the forum when people who don't know what they're talking about try to respond. I mean, if any of you guys understood AGP standards you at least would've noticed that there's no such thing as 2.5V AGP.

AGP 1.0 = 3.3V (the first 1X and 2X AGP cards)
AGP 2.0 = 1.5V (introduced with AGP 4X)
AGP 3.0 = 0.8V (introduced with AGP 8X)

When people talk about AGP voltage, they're talking about signaling voltage. It's not where the card actually draws its power.

The only thing you have to remember is if the AGP slot is keyed on the back side of the motherboard, it's AGP 1.0.

Here's what an AGP 1.0 card looks like. It's keyed on the wrong side:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-178

If you have an AGP 1.0 slot, you need to get either an AGP 1.0 card, or else a universal AGP card. Universal cards are double-keyed and are supposed to work with all slots. Almost all cards were universal until very recently. Since they finally abandoned AGP 1.0 compatability, you're starting to hear about idiots trying to stick their R9800 into their old Celeron 300A and wondering why it doesn't work.

Most older motherboards are still going to be AGP 2.0. Newer 8X cards (0.8V) are supposed to be downward compatible with 1.5V signaling and should work fine. If your friend's system really is so old that it has an AGP 1.0 slot (we're talking Pentium 2 era), then you just have to make sure you get a universal card. AFAIK, any motherboard chipset newer than the i440BX supports AGP 4X and should have an AGP 2.0 slot.

A Radeon 9200 is universal, and if his system is really old it wouldn't help much to get anything more expensive than an R9200. The R9200 has twice the pixel pipes and more than twice the memory bandwidth of the TNT2, so he should notice a pretty big difference for only spending $50.

An FX 5900 (or a 5950 Ultra) is the best universal card you can get. The FX 5900 XT for $176 is a really good deal, but it would be a waste if you're not going to upgrade the rest of the system soon.

Here's ATI's page on AGP slots, which will give you a much better picture:
http://www.ati.com/support/faq/agpchart.html