AGP Video Card Question

[draganjr]

Ok I have a MSI 6600GT OC'ed to 570/1080. 3DMark 05 is at 3600 - 3900, depending on the drivers I use.

I am running a MSI mobo, the plat. one., op 144 oc'ed to 2.55 GHz, 1 GB TCCD DDR, Raid 0 with two WD Sata drivers, and I think that is it.

I like the card but I would like to upgrade but I want to stuck with the AGP slot, not ready for the change to PCI-E.

I have about $140 to spend on a video card (birthday money).

Should I stuck with the 6600GT or jump into an X800/X850 series card?

ATI has both on sale:
X800XL
&
X850 Pro (heard it could be unlocked to run at X850 XT PE speeds and pipelines)

or is there another card ou could recommand if any.

I have read many reviews but they are really no help.

Thank you,
David R.

 

[MustangSVT]

you should "STICK" with the 6600gt.

save money and move onto PCI E later on.

 

[EvanAdams]

I am in your same boat. I think you qont get a big enough boost to warrent a x800xl or 850pro. I would wait for the gs7800 to drop should ati come out with an equivilant. otherwise save the cash or spend it on some games that you missed out on

 

[Fern]

For that price you can get a used 6800GT (256MB). That would be a very nice performance bump.

 

[BobDaMenkey]

I'd just stick it out and move to PCIe when you had more money to do it right.

 

[Noubourne]

I would also take the $150 and save it till you can move up to PCI-e. Even a 6800GT is what, 20% faster tops? If I'm spending over $100, I want it to be at least 50% faster than what I've got. That's just me though.

My last move was from a 9800 Pro to a 6800GT. My next move will likely be this winter. It would be sooner, but I'm going to spend money on Conroe, water, and an LCD instead, so by the time I get all that taken care of, I figure G80 and R570 or whatever will be out.

They both just taped out in the last few weeks, so I figure by October we should be in a full-on next-gen frenzy.

 

[EvanAdams]

I would say wait. 6600 is fast enough that your bday money would be better spent on some new games or games that you missed

 

[Cookie Monster]

Save the money to move to PCI-e. Its not good beating up the dead horse.

 

[draganjr]

Where can I find a 6800GT for that price?

Also if you had to pick out of the X800 XL or the X850 Pro, which one would you pick?

Thank you all for your feed back, pci-e is still about two years away for me.

 

[BassBomb]

my cousin was in the boat of X800XL vs X850PRO vs 6800GT and we found that in the end the 6800GT won more games than the latter, (see tomshardware last agp roundup), so he got that

id still stick with your card

 

[draganjr]

Yeah, I am going to stay with what I have right know, it still works pretty good, I just have issues with drivers.

Thank you all.

I might just jump on the PCI-E bandwagon this fall.

 

[Kalessian]

The problem with AGP->PCIe right now is that DDR/Socket939, something AGP and PCIe formerly had in common, are pretty much obsolete. By "this fall" you're talking about putting together a whole new system from step 1. 2 gigs of DDR2, a decent mobo, a conroe maybe, with a GPU upgrade? $700 easy.

What you might want to do is grab a used Socket939 board as everyone jumps ship, keep your Opty and RAM and maybe get a cheap 7600gt or so.

 

[cmrmrc]

i'd say keep your money, there are no cards worthy of the 140$ upgrade...

and X800XL is faster than X850PRO...

 

[draganjr]

How about a 7800 GS for the right price. I know that it has SM 3.0 and has 16 pipelines.

 

[EvanAdams]

There are no 7800GS' at anything lower than $250. Between $140 for a X850pro and $250 for a 7800GS I dont think that the price difference equates to the performance delta.

And yes yes I know that price increase and performance increase is never a 1:1 relationship I think you should EXPECT more of a 1:1 on an out of date and dying thing like AGP.

 

[draganjr]

I know how much the 7800 GS is, my wife will be helping me with the difference in the price.

If I was to upgrade to PCI-E, wat would I be getting - I like to OC things.

The specs of pc is up above. I play games on PC only, I have no game consoles, I gave them away to family members because they just sat there collecting dust.

I know nothing about the PCI-E and the newer chipsets.

Thank you.

 

[draganjr]

How about this setup? I will be only spending about $143.00 out of my pocket.

VIDEO CARD = eVGA 256-P2-N553-AX Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail (this one or the PNY one)

MOBO = EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail (Heard great things about this mobo)

 

[BassBomb]

7600GT isnt much faster than a 6800GT like you wanted for AGP... go for a 7900GT/X1800XT

 

[draganjr]

those cards are a little out of my price range. My wife wont help that much

But is the setup above a good up grade to what I already have?

 

[BassBomb]

it would be no different than adding a 6800gt really... so no

all you will get increase is an extra set of samples of AA or a resolution bump 6800gt is a very well performer at 1280x960 for most games

 

[Munky]

Take a look at some of the benches here:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard...x1900_gt/9/#abschnitt_age_of_empires_3
A 7600gt is anywhere from 1.5x to 3x as fast as a 6600gt in most games, so it's a good upgrade.

 

[draganjr]

I am going to make the jump into the PCI-E world.

The mother board will need to be around $75.00 but the video card I will spend around $200.00

I was thinking of the MSI K8N Neo4-F and HIS Hightech H180GTO256DVN Radeon X1800GTO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 CrossFire Ready Video Card