which card?

[tommyman]

hi i am looking for a high end agp video card that won't bottleneck my system by too much but yet still have high fps (50+)

i already tried x850pro 256mb / bfg geforce6600gt 128mb, both card runs average fps in latest games but i want higher fps

current:
athlon xp 2500 (1.82Ghz) / 1280 ddr / ASUS MOBO a7v8x-x / Radeon9600pro 128mb

here are some cards I have in mind (the bold ones are the ones i'm considering first):
- EVGA E-GEFORCE 6800XT 128M 256BIT DDR AGP VGA DVI HDTV-OUT
- ATI RADEON X800 PRO AGP8X 256MB DDR3 VGA DVI-I TV OUT
- CHAINTECH APOGEE GEFORCE 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 AGP8X VGA DVI-I TV OUT
- EVGA E-GEFORCE 6800XT 128M 256BIT DDR AGP VGA DVI HDTV-OUT
- LEADTEK A400 GT TDH GEFORCE 6800 GT AGP8X 256MB GDDR3 VGA DVI TV-OUT
- PNY VERTO GEFORCE 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 AGP8X VGA DVI S-VIDEO OUT
- Sapphire Radeon X800 XT 256MB AGP8X VGA DVI-I TV Out Platinum Edition


the reason i won't upgrade is i don't have enough money to upgrade the whole system, i'll probably upgrade in 3/4 months and i can't handle the 9600pro anymore and make my gaming experience turns upside down with the lag (even at lowest quality)

[goofball]

your CPU will present a bottleneck to many of the high end cards.


The best cards you have listed there are the X800XT and the 6800GT cards. Both are pretty much equal overall.

[Cafe_333]

Yeah, the real bottleneck is your cpu. upgrade that before considering a better videocard. and when you do you can look back to this thread. but i'll give you my opinion on the videocards anyway.... btw, why do you have an X800pro listed there when you tried the better X850pro? The X850pro btw I think is already a very decent card. Anyways, benchmarks show the performance of the X800XL is actually neck and neck to the 6800GT, there was a thread about this here. However, the X800XL is alot cheaper for comparable performance. Cheapest I've found the X800XL is $339. Cheapest I've found the 6800GT is eVGA for $399. So if you're looking for 6800GT performance, you can get it with a much cheaper X800XL. But seeing how you were going to spend the latter amount anyway, then you can get an even better X850XT for the same price of $399 that will wipe the floor with that 6800GT.

[tommyman]

my mobo only support up to xp3000+ cpu and but i guess if i upgrade to that, i'd need to upgrade again really soon

so if i skip them, upgrade to amd64 3000+ or 3500+, i'd need to get a new mobo that supports pci-e, then i'd need new ram because my current ram (pc2700) will be crappy, then i need to find a decent pci-e card, like 6800gt?

so i guess that comes to mobo ($150~200ish), cpu ($300ish), 2gig of ram ($300ish), 6800gtx 256mb ($500ish) and thats like nearly a grand

and i only have about $500 canadian, maybe i can buy a new mobo and cpu first, then use my next 4 week's paycheck to buy 6800gt

[importpsycho]

what's 1280 DDR?
128mb?

[tommyman]

ehhh i mean 1.25GB of ram, and it's pc2700

edit: here is my xmas wish list

from NCIX

- AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Processor S939 San Diego 2.2GHZ 1MB L2 Cache 90NM Retail Box
$289.99

- DFI LANParty UT NF4 ULTRA-D Motherboard ATX S939 NFORCE4 Ultra DDR 2PCI-E16 SATA RAID Sound LAN 1394
$154.43

- NGEAR SLI BRIDGE CONNECTOR FOR PCI-E SLI READY GRAPHICS CARDS
$16.98

- OCZ Premier PC3200 1GB 2X512MB DDR400 CL2.5 3-3-7 184PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit W/ Ramsink
$115.99

- BFG GeForce 7800GT 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV VIVO SLI Video Card W/ Call Of Duty 2
$443.98

- Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 7200RPM 16MB 9.0MS RoHS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty
$126.11

- Logisys CS-51WBK 51W Black 450W ATX Tower Case 4X5.25 2X3.5 5X3.5INT W/ Window
$43.99

- LOGITECH INTERNET PRO KEYBOARD Black PS/2 OEM (SINGLE PACK)
$15.20

YOUR TOTAL $1,206.67

now i just have to figure it out how to get that extra $700 dollars

[tommyman]

wow i feel stupid

it turns out i have 2x 512mb pc3200 ram sticks, and 1x 256mb pc2700 ram

does that mean i can overclock? when i change the setting to 2200 it just crashes at bios

[Loco]

PC2700=DDR333=333MHz
PC3200=DDR400=400MHz

And you probably already know the PC2700 is slower and may not over clock easily or even run well at 333MHz. I don't purposely OC, but have under-clocked ram timing and turned up the voltage slightly, through the bios to get a system to run stable at CPU design speed. Sometimes value ram won't run at the speeds on the box. Fans (cooling) are very important here. When increasing the voltage or speed heat will increase. For me nice quiet fans move the heat out of the case.

You could try removing the PC2700 stick while attempting to increase your timing, but remember heat is the foe and if the system goes totally blank, you may have to reset the bios.

Changing the voltage could be the end of your system.

Sometimes, bottlenecks in system are full hard drives or are in need of defragmentation. I presume you checked that.

Have fun.

[Vancouver 1.7EL]

Was the x850pro that you tried a VIVO card? Do you still have it?

There is a good chance that the 4 disabled pipes can be unlocked so that all 16 pipes are enabled and overclocked to x850 XT or XT PE speeds. I bought an x850pro from the recent Compusmart deal, which I successfully unlocked the disabled pipes and overclocked it to XT speeds. In benchmarks I've seen, the x850 XT PE is on par or better than the 6800GT.

[importpsycho]

ehhh i mean 1.25GB of ram, and it's pc2700

edit: here is my xmas wish list

from NCIX

- AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Processor S939 San Diego 2.2GHZ 1MB L2 Cache 90NM Retail Box
$289.99

- DFI LANParty UT NF4 ULTRA-D Motherboard ATX S939 NFORCE4 Ultra DDR 2PCI-E16 SATA RAID Sound LAN 1394
$154.43

- NGEAR SLI BRIDGE CONNECTOR FOR PCI-E SLI READY GRAPHICS CARDS
$16.98

- OCZ Premier PC3200 1GB 2X512MB DDR400 CL2.5 3-3-7 184PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit W/ Ramsink
$115.99

- BFG GeForce 7800GT 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV VIVO SLI Video Card W/ Call Of Duty 2
$443.98

- Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 7200RPM 16MB 9.0MS RoHS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty
$126.11

- Logisys CS-51WBK 51W Black 450W ATX Tower Case 4X5.25 2X3.5 5X3.5INT W/ Window
$43.99

- LOGITECH INTERNET PRO KEYBOARD Black PS/2 OEM (SINGLE PACK)
$15.20

YOUR TOTAL $1,206.67

now i just have to figure it out how to get that extra $700 dollars

get Opteron 144 instead
and what do you need this?
SLI BRIDGE CONNECTOR
you dont have two vide cards

[Cafe_333]

In benchmarks I've seen, the x850 XT PE is on par or better than the 6800GT.

I'm somewhat curious which benchmarks these are because everything i've seen had the x850xtpe destroying the 6800GT... From what I've seen, the 6800GT is more comparable to the X800XL.

[Cafe_333]

I agree, if budget is one of your concerns, go with a cheaper cpu that can overclock well. The new opterons that are coming are a good choice.

[ShadowVlican]

like everyone else said.... your system is ancient

get at least a S939 3200+ if you want to take CPU out of the picture