Will a PCI Graphics Card Boost Performance Much?

mtnagel

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Feb 19, 2004
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I have a 1 ghz AMD Athlon system with 256 mb of RAM. The problem is 8 mb is shared from the system memory for video. The motherboard does not have an AGP slot though. Will a 32 mb or 64 mb PCI graphics card give me a boost in performance?

I don't play any hardcore video games. I do the usually internet/e-mail/MS Office stuff, but I also do digital photography and just a little photo editing. I also do a lot of music (I'm in the process of converting all ~500 CD's into mp3's).

I found this 64 mb card on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000WTV1W/qid=1083379293/br=1-4/ref=br_lf_e_4//104-0105471-3083904?v=glance&s=electronics&n=290434) for only $37, but it's actually from TigerDirect (don't know if I should stay away from them). Also, newegg.com also has a few that are similar (based off the GeForce MX400) for around $40 - 45. Should I be concerned with brand name since they are all based on the same chip or should I go for the cheapest?

Or am I just wasting money that I should be saving for a better computer all around?

Matt
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
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A fast PCI card should provide a gain in standard desktop tasks as you'll no longer be sharing your system memory with it. Just don't spend too much money on it.

However if you plan on doing any kind of gaming in the future it's better to just get a new system.
 

mtnagel

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Feb 19, 2004
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Thanks, that's kind of what I figured. No gaming plans in the near future. I don't think $40 is too bad. I wouldn't spend hundreds like the top AGP cards.
 

GeForce 2 is a bit old though. You could get a PCI GeForce 4 for only a little more, I'm sure.

Personally, I'd prefer a Radeon. Just my opinion though, and just about anything will do, really.
 

nitromullet

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Jan 7, 2004
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I personally think that you would be wasting your money. I doubt that wining back that 8MB of RAM that your system shares with the onboard video will make a difference. If your 2D video quality is acceptable, then stick with what you have. If you need more RAM, buy more RAM.
 

Peter

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Oct 15, 1999
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You won't get ANY performance boost in 2D work. The reason is that with a PCI VGA plugged, the integrated one doesn't go away. It still eats into your RAM bandwidth.
 

mtnagel

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Feb 19, 2004
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Originally posted by: Peter
You won't get ANY performance boost in 2D work. The reason is that with a PCI VGA plugged, the integrated one doesn't go away. It still eats into your RAM bandwidth.
Can't you turn off the integrated video in the BIOS? I know I did that on an older system I had.

That PCI shoot out link was dedicated to benchmarks on games. So I guess in the end, it's not really worth it. Maybe I should buy a stick of 256 mb memory and replace one of the 128 mb stick in there.

Matt
 

nitromullet

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Jan 7, 2004
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Upgrading your RAM should help a bit with desktop apps, but I don't expect it will do much for your mp3 encoding speed. Encoding 500 cd's to mp3 is simply a big task and will take you quite a while. Even if you can do really quick encoding, you still have to swap out 500 cd's. I have roughly 100 cd's worth of mp3's on my rig, and it took me a long time to do even that. That being said, I did notice that my P4 2.6 encodes much quicker than my previous Athlon 1.2 and XP2000+ did. Obvioulsy, it's a faster chip, bit it seems to be at least twice as fast as the XP2000+. If encoding is a primary use of your PC, consider a P4 next time you build a new system. Btw... I use.cdex to do my encoding, which uses the LAME mp3 encoder.

Edit: I know this is a bit off topic for the video forum, but I figured I would throw in my $.02 in regards to encoding
 

mtnagel

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Feb 19, 2004
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Thanks for the info nitro. Sorry it's off topic, but I'm curious, can you tell me the encode speed you get?

I'm using Audiograbber and the LAME encoder and I regularly see speeds of 6x or so. I've seen higher and a little lower too. I would just like to compare how much faster it would be with a new PC.

For comparison, with my old PII 350 mHz with 196 mb of RAM, and an 8 mb graphics card I was lucky to get about 1x with iTunes!! So, to me, my "new" PC (it was a friends old system) is much faster than taking an hour to rip an hour CD!

Also I see on ebay that I could probably get a 512 mb stick for just a little more than I was going to spend on the video card, so I would think that would give me more of a boost than the video card. Should I buy branded memory or is it okay to buy generic.

Again, sorry off-topic.

Matt
 

Marsumane

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Mar 9, 2004
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Do you have the motherboard manual or any other way of finding out exactly what motherboard you have? If not, is it a premanufactured pc? (ie dell 4600, etc) We will need this to tell you what type of ram to buy (i assume pc133) (im guessing ur not entirely sure what you already have in there, nor what you need).

But as far as namebrand memory vs generic, usually name brand memory has a higher compatability with a higher range of motherboards and chipsets. They also often come with better customer support if something isnt quite right.

Any more than 512 ram will probably be overkill, esp considering the fact that you only have a 1ghz cpu.

Also, look on newegg for what you buy (if they have what you are looking for). They are probably the best vendor to buy from online for computer parts.
 

mtnagel

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Originally posted by: Marsumane
Do you have the motherboard manual or any other way of finding out exactly what motherboard you have? If not, is it a premanufactured pc? (ie dell 4600, etc) We will need this to tell you what type of ram to buy (i assume pc133) (im guessing ur not entirely sure what you already have in there, nor what you need).

But as far as namebrand memory vs generic, usually name brand memory has a higher compatability with a higher range of motherboards and chipsets. They also often come with better customer support if something isnt quite right.

Any more than 512 ram will probably be overkill, esp considering the fact that you only have a 1ghz cpu.

Also, look on newegg for what you buy (if they have what you are looking for). They are probably the best vendor to buy from online for computer parts.
I know that it takes PC133 memory. I've already put another 128 mb stick in (it only came with 128 mb). Newegg has some good prices, but I was looking at ebay. Like what do you think of this - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14918&item=3477678474&rd=1 ?
 

nitromullet

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I don't know what the encoding speed for mp3's is offhand, but I know that it only takes a few minutes to rip a cd. I guess I can put it this way, the time it takes to rip a cd is negligable to the point where I really don't pay much attention to how fast it's going.

Edit: Ok, I just ripped a 58min CD on an Athlon 1.2GHz machine with 256MB of RAM in a little over 19 minutes, which is nowhere near 6x. I am guessing that the 6x speed you are seeing is actually how fast your cdrom is reading the cd media. You have to remember that ripping cd's to mp3 is actually a 2 part process - First the song is ripped to wave and then the wave is encoded as mp3, so a faster read speed on the cdrom doesn't hurt either.
 

nitromullet

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Originally posted by: mtnagel
know that it takes PC133 memory. I've already put another 128 mb stick in (it only came with 128 mb). Newegg has some good prices, but I was looking at ebay. Like what do you think of this - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14918&item=3477678474&rd=1 ?
There really isn't much of an opinion that one can give on that RAM. There is no information given of any sort of substance to base an opinion on, such as the brand of the RAM or the kind of RAM modules used. That being said, the seller's rating isn't bad and the buyers seem to be happy with the RAM they purchased.
 

imported_Goblin

Junior Member
May 1, 2004
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PCI is not that much slower than AGP. Once the code gets loaded into the card its all fast.

It will be much faster than any built in video with shared memory.

Choices ATI 7500, Nvidia GF4 MX. I don't know which of those is fastest but both are probably much better than what you have in it now.
 

BFG10K

Lifer
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The reason is that with a PCI VGA plugged, the integrated one doesn't go away. It still eats into your RAM bandwidth.
Not only can you probably disable it in the BIOS but Windows probably ceases to use it when it detects no monitor is connected to it at boot-up.
 

Johnbear007

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Jul 1, 2002
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my god a new video card wont give you beter 2d performance. What a waste fo money. Build a new system, unless you are really really poor
 

dshodson

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id bet u would get a bigger perf increase by increasing the memory, however, i honestly have to say buying a dell 2400 or 4600 deal for cheap would be a better way to go since it will give you more years of use. The 2400 has on board video/pci like your current system. The 4600 has on board video but has an agp slot for expansion instead. I purchased a 2400 a little while back for a friend for 230 bucks. It had win xp home, a 2.4 ghz 533 p4 chip, a dvd player, a cdrw, and 128 of mem (i had to bump this part up with memory from a different deal) and we got a monitor some where else as well. The prb with what you are currently planning is that in 2 months you will very likely want to increase the memory or something else b/c the improvement u get from the video card alone wont be enough IMHO and then sooner or later u are paying close to 200 and could have gotten the new xp OS and faster chip/MB/memory if u just invested in a better system to start with. You have to troll through the hotdeals section on this site and fatwallet to really find the deals and a really good one comes out at least every other month.

D
 

Marsumane

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Mar 9, 2004
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Just call it a day and get some kingston/crucial/any other namebrand high compatability ram. Those will have the best luck working in your system.
 

nitromullet

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Further update on ripping times. I was curious myself, so I grabbed the same cd and ripped it to mp3 on my own box (P4 2.6GHz, 1024MB RAM). All settings the same in cdex, only took 4 minutes to rip the same 58min cd.
 

reever

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Oct 4, 2003
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It will give you a boost, but the boost it gives you is sorta random. The fastest card switched to PCI may not give the fastest performance compared to the other PCi cards, and some results will be completely random, i remember some site that tested like every pci card on the market, if somebody remembers it, it will answer all your questions
 

mtnagel

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Feb 19, 2004
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Originally posted by: nitromullet
I don't know what the encoding speed for mp3's is offhand, but I know that it only takes a few minutes to rip a cd. I guess I can put it this way, the time it takes to rip a cd is negligable to the point where I really don't pay much attention to how fast it's going.

Edit: Ok, I just ripped a 58min CD on an Athlon 1.2GHz machine with 256MB of RAM in a little over 19 minutes, which is nowhere near 6x. I am guessing that the 6x speed you are seeing is actually how fast your cdrom is reading the cd media. You have to remember that ripping cd's to mp3 is actually a 2 part process - First the song is ripped to wave and then the wave is encoded as mp3, so a faster read speed on the cdrom doesn't hurt either.
Audiograbber has the option to go directly from CD to mp3 without intermediate .wav file, so that's what I do and it actually says "encode speed".
 

mtnagel

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Feb 19, 2004
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Originally posted by: Johnbear007
my god a new video card wont give you beter 2d performance. What a waste fo money. Build a new system, unless you are really really poor
Let me put it to you this way, I'm getting married in about a year. 'Nuff said I believe :)
 

nitromullet

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Jan 7, 2004
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Originally posted by: mtnagel

Audiograbber has the option to go directly from CD to mp3 without intermediate .wav file, so that's what I do and it actually says "encode speed".

So does cdex, but the way ripping works is that there is the intermediate step, Audiograbber is simply making that step tranparent to you. It will rip the cd to wav, keep it around as a temp file while it encodes it as an mp3, and then delete the wav when it's done. The reason this is done is becasue LAME (and other encoders) only encode wav files to mp3, while another application rips the cd to wav.

from: http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

Audiograbber is a beautiful piece of software that grabs digital audio from cd's...

...and send them to a variety or external MP3 encoders, such as Fraunhofers L3enc, or even use some MP3/WMA encoders internally for automatic creation of MP3's...

Edit: Anyway, to get back on topic, I don't think that a video card upgrade or even more RAM will help your encoding speeds. Judging from my own loose "benchmarks", it looks like raw cpu power is what you really need to speed up mp3 encoding.

Athlon 1.2 = 19 minutes
P4 2.6 = 4 minutes

...times that by 500 cd's and the time difference becomes quite considerable.