keep 6800gt (upgrade mb/cpu) or go 1950gt agp?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
A

artemedes

Senior member
Nov 3, 1999
778
0
0
Been out of the gaming world for a couple years. My current gaming computer is a NF7-s with 2500 barton, BFG 6800GT, and 1gb ram. I recently started playing Warhammer 40k with the newest expansion and those damn necrons make it slooowww in big battles. Especially noticeable when the necrons get that pyramid moving. The green special effects and explosions just make it crawl. Big battles with races other than Necrons run great.

I just read about the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA and think it might make a good upgrade with a core 2 duo cpu. But before I spend the money I want to make sure I am spending money correctly. Am I cpu bound with my 2500+ barton, or is it my 6800 gt falling short? I have enough to get the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA and and E4300 core 2 duo or an agp X1950 pro?

The MB option is appealing since it offers potential for incremental upgrades.

What do you think?

Thanks
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
AT this time in the upgrade game, I'd go for the pci-e slot motherboard and a copy of windows vista. I think AGP is dead for those who have a 6800gt agp and up card.
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
Originally posted by: happy medium
AT this time in the upgrade game, I'd go for the pci-e slot motherboard and a copy of windows vista. I think AGP is dead for those who have a 6800gt agp and up card.
Click to expand...

I'd? but for him with his budget he can't afford it. What I was trying to say is I'd change my motherboard and my operating system, but still If i were him i'd go pci-e.

Edit: Vista isn't that bad for games anyway. In
a few months it will be better. Imo
 
C

CaiNaM

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 2000
3,718
0
0
depends on your budget.

if you can afford cpu, motherboard, memory, and pci-e card, then go for it.

if not, and you need to stretch the life of your pc a little longer, go for the 1950pro. another user with a similar setup (2500 barton running at 3200 speeds) upgraded to the pro and is quite happy with the results.
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
I think in his case he can reuse his ram and video card with that board. So he just needs core 2 duo cpu and the asrock board.
 
C

CaiNaM

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 2000
3,718
0
0
so i can run both single channel pc2700 ddr and dual channel ddr2? i heard they had an agp/pcie board but both types of memory (sorry, not familiar with asrock parts)?

he'd still have to upgrade video as the 6800 is the bigger bottleneck there; he wouldn't get much gaming love if he only upgraded the cpu (tho if he encodes video/audio he'd be ecstatic)
 
V

vitaminReality

Junior Member
Jun 12, 2006
16
0
0
Originally posted by: happy medium
I'd? but for him with his budget he can't afford it. What I was trying to say is I'd change my motherboard and my operating system, but still If i were him i'd go pci-e.

Edit: Vista isn't that bad for games anyway. In
a few months it will be better. Imo
Click to expand...
Oh, okay. :) 5-10% worse from what I've seen online, but I would spend that money on hardware and upgrade to Vista later.
Originally posted by: CaiNaM
so i can run both single channel pc2700 ddr and dual channel ddr2? i heard they had an agp/pcie board but both types of memory (sorry, not familiar with asrock parts)?
Click to expand...
You can run either DDR (single or dual channel) or DDR2 (single or dual channel), but you can't run them at the same time.


I think you should go with the motherboard/core 2 duo option, PCI-Express cards are just so much cheaper and easier to find a good deal on when you get some more cash.
 
C

CaiNaM

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 2000
3,718
0
0
Originally posted by: vitaminReality
so i can run both single channel pc2700 ddr and dual channel ddr2? i heard they had an agp/pcie board but both types of memory (sorry, not familiar with asrock parts)?
Click to expand...
You can run either DDR (single or dual channel) or DDR2 (single or dual channel), but you can't run them at the same time.[/quote]

hmm.. interesting.. wouldn't have expected that.

still, it just isn't the type of thing i would recommend..

read a couple of quick reviews, and they covered both ends. i read one that stated what a good value it was, and another that stated,

"In all seriousness though, the sub US$60 asking price of the 775Dual-VSTA will make the board a strong seller in the OEM channels and office solutions where compatibility and cost savings are the chief concerns instead of performance or features. For the rest of us, the 775Dual-VSTA is just another motherboard at the bottom of the barrel in the bargain bin."

now that review might have been unecessarily harsh, but given i have no personal exprience with these types of value boards, it certainly does make me wonder...

i've also never particularly like via chipsets - and this one perhaps moreso than others as it's an AGP chipset with some rudimentry pci-e compatibility added, which would be another reason i'd likely not recommend this..

while i certainly like the C2D platform, i would personally wait until i could make the 'plunge' and get all the components, but that's just me. i'd readily agree an argument could me made from the other point of view; just isn't something i would do.

 
D

Dainas

Senior member
Aug 5, 2005
299
0
0
A

artemedes

Senior member
Nov 3, 1999
778
0
0
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I did research the asrock board quite a bit and found that it was only a pciX4 not 16 slot. So I would probably upgrade the motherboard down the road if I went with new pci-express video card anyway.

The reason I asked is that I don't want to spend more than 300 on upgrading the game machine. I went to newegg and priced a mb/cpu/mem/video and it was well over $1000.
Granted it would have been a really kick-butt upgrade from what I have now.

So the real question is my BFG 6800GT overclocked good enough for the new board. I am thinking that for ~230 I would get the most bang-4-buck with the 1950 pro agp. I also have 3 computers in the house that use AGP, and plenty of family computers that use AGP. As you can tell I am thinking that if the card gets me by for another year, then I can still use it in the other computers. My HTPC is running just a TI4400 and it would probably really like the 1950 card.

Hmm.. Typing that last paragraph really made my decision. I think I will just order the video card ( I know I will use it somewhere). If I end up doing a big upgrade in the next few months then it isn't that much money to miss.

Thanks again for all the input.
 
C

CaiNaM

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 2000
3,718
0
0
Originally posted by: artemedes
Hmm.. Typing that last paragraph really made my decision. I think I will just order the video card ( I know I will use it somewhere). If I end up doing a big upgrade in the next few months then it isn't that much money to miss.
Click to expand...

that's exactly what i was thinking when i replaced my wife's 6800GT (btw, i have a brand spankin new 6800GT that just arrived from BFG if anyone is intereste ;) ) w/ the x1950p. I have 2 other pc's that i could "hand down" the x1950p when the time comes.

the one thing i would add is make sure you have an adequate power supply. half the problems people have with higher end gfx cards seem to stem from PS issues. from my personal exp. with 2 x1950pro's, you should have a good, 'name brand' PSU (as in good internal components) with a min 18a on +12v, preferably 20a or higher (especially if you are running multiple peripherals).

good luck w/ your upgrade!

 
A

artemedes

Senior member
Nov 3, 1999
778
0
0
Update time. Just in case anyone else is in a similar situation. The new card arrived today. I put it in and ran some tests. I ended up buying a HIS X1950 pro 256. It has a very nice cooler and seems noticeably quieter than the 6800GT. I can hear my Hard drive much more distinctly. Looks nice and the colors on my LCD seem more vibrant and games have a bit more contrast which looks better. After doing some reading I decided to try Omega drivers based on Cat 7.1. Havn't found any issues with them yet.

3dmark06:
6800GT - 2385
X1950pro- 3773

I then turned up the image quality (6X AA, 16X AF). I noticed that Warhammer Dark crusade seemed to hiccup every 10 seconds or so, but after about 45 seconds it was as smooth as could be. I am guessing I noticed the little pause while it loaded textures then was great. So I have better image quality and smoother running in big battles. If I try any other older games I'll report back and let you know. So far am happy with my decision.

I think since I have an LCD at 1280X1024 I didn't really need to make a huge investment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom