Am I stupid for upgrading to a PCI video card?

[aircasper]

I currently have a piddly old 466 celeron with an asus cuwe-rm (intel 810E chipset) motherboard, which has no agp slot. I just purchased a Visiontek xtasy 5564 PCI video card at ubid for $54 and was thinking of upgrading the processor to a 900MHz celeron for about $52 from newegg. Now I'm wondering if this upgrade is worthwhile. I know PCI is nowhere near as good as AGP, but i wanted to avoid having to upgrade the motherboard as well because I want to spend as little money as possible on this system. It works well for most purposes, except for gaming. I was thinking that the 5564 card has to be better than the integrated video on the motherboard, which is what i've been using. Any thoughts?

 

[spoma]

You summarize it up yourself. The PCI card is going to be better than you have but not as good as AGP. The decision for you really isn't whether to buy a PCI videocard because tha tis the only slot that you have. It really depends on what type of gaming you want to do. If you decide to upgrade the motherboard then I would def switch over to AGP. That $52 you are spending to upgrade the processor is half of what would cost you to get a new mother board and processor. (ECS K7S5A + Duron 900) Just something to thin about.

 

[aircasper]

hmm, good point spoma. i don't intend on doing real heavy 3d gaming, but i would like to play some of the recent games at moderate resolutions. perhaps if i was able to get a great deal on a new mobo/cpu combo i would go that route. i want to spend as little money as possible, because it doesn't seem to make sense to make too many upgrades before just starting all over and building a new system from scratch (which the mrs. would definitely NOT appreciate it). i guess i'll wait for my card from ubid, and if i don't see any great (i.e., really cheap) mobo/cpu deals, i'll just stick with my original plan and use the PCI video card and upgarde the processor. just thinking out loud here. i suppose i could always fleabay the PCI video card.

 

[qda]

"...but i would like to play some of the recent games at moderate resolutions..."

only if you consider recent 2 years ago....
sorry dude agp is just necessary nowdays....

 

[nRollo]

Help me out here qda. Why is "agp is just necessary nowdays..." and pci only good for "only if you consider recent 2 years ago..."?
I assume you can point me at some benches that show a PCI flavor of a card being seriously outperformed by an AGP version? Provided the oncard memory has enough RAM not be making calls to the system memory, why would AGP be necessary at "moderate resolutions"?

 

[PCHPlayer]

Sounds like an excellent idea for an article. I am sure there are many people out there with those "everything on the board" and no AGP slot motherboards. There seems to be a much better selection of PCI video cards these days. Just before 3dfx went out of business they were about the only PCI game in town.
I would really like to see how well a 64MB PCI card could keep up.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Although short and undetailed, here is a Link to a comparision between AGP and PCI where the only difference is the bus. aircasper you'll be fine with that card for what you want to do with it so relax and enjoy your upgrade.
Edit:More links from old match-ups Another link and Another

 

[bunnyfubbles]

PCI can still dish it out. I know some guys with the Voodoo5 5500 and they can run all their games at very playable resolutions and frame rates. This is also considering the systems are backed by decently powerful CPUs and are tweaked to squeeze every possible drop of performance from the Voodoo5. Granted that the Visiontek xtasy 5564 PCI is not a Voodoo5 5500, it should still get the job done.

 

[aircasper]

wow, thanks for all the great thoughts! you guys/gals are awesome! i think i'll stick with the pci video card upgrade as most people seem to suggest. now i just have to decide what's the best value in terms of a cpu upgrade. i'm leaning towards the 900MHz celeron for about $52, but please tell me if you have any other suggestions. thanks everyone!

 

[marcoco]

I'm in a similar boat.
I just upgraded my video card to a PCI MX200 ($50 after rebate last weekend @ BB).

For me upgrading the mobo was not an option because it's appendages
would not fit into a newer mobo. It's that old. 72pin Simm RAM, ISA modem & Network cards).

So a Slocket & Celery CPU upgrade is pretty much my last option if I plan to squeeze whatever juice is left out of it.