[Fineus]

It's that time again.

I'm looking to upgrade my computer and have hit the snag that is PCI-Express. Is it worth shelling out on a completely new mobo/processor just so I can make the leap upwards onto that platform, or can I stick safely with my existing AGP slot for the time being?

If I do stick with my AGP.. I'm looking for something that can play the likes of Oblivion or upcoming games on full graphics without flinching. My Radeon 9800 Pro has served me well but I've started having to dial down settings in some games to allow for smooth performance.

Unfortunately money is a problem as always so I'm not looking to spend more than £150 / £200 on this. I also don't know whether nVidia or Radeon would be better at this stage but have no particular affiliation to either (that said, having an nVidia card would allow me to make use of all of the FS SCPs graphic options as Radeons drivers still haven't been sorted out).

Someone care to clue me in?

[ZmaN]

as I can see from here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/05/vga_charts_vii/page4.html

It looks like a substantial upgrade in your price range would be an X800XL for an AGP slot, such as this Gecube: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814241010

Now that costs about 200 american dollars (and its not in stock right now), but if you dont have the time or the money to upgrade your ENTIRE pc at this time of your life, then I would just get a better graphics card...  this also depends on what other hardware you have..

I mean if you have a low end athlon XP, then you might just want to upgrade, but it you have a pentium 4 at about 2 ghz or an athlon 2600, you should be okay...

hope this helps you out...

PS:  some more links..

AGP VGA Charts
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/05/vga_charts_vii/index.html

PCI EXPRESS VGA Charts
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/index.html

Also, PCI express is not much faster than AGP, it depends on the rest of your hardware, like I said before....

[Petrarch of the VBB]

I'm in the same situation here.

Wanted to upgrade my graphics card, and then discovered I'd need a new motherboard since everything is PCI-E these days. Then discovered I'd also need a new CPU as Socket A has gone by the wayside. And then discovered I'd need a new PSU because PCI-E cards have fancy power connectors.

It soon mounts up.

So I've shelled out for all the lot, and gone for a Gainward Geforce 6800GS "Goes Like Hell" 512MB card. nVidia are apparently better at the moment, but ATi are catching up again, I think.

[Mars]

Same here, I currently have a Radeon (standard PCI) and I wish I could just upgrade to AGP without changing around my motherboard, I looked into getting PCI-express (X16) and found I'd need to replace virtually everything on my computer, so now I'm just saving up to get a new one from New Egg.

[Shade]

An Nvidia 6800 or better would probably be able to cope with the likes of Oblivion with fairly minor compromises. The best available card at the moment for AGP is the 7800GS, which is not far below a PCIE 7800GT and so should be able to run anything that's out today. Both of those (probably the top ATI models too, but I can't confirm that) support shader model 3 which is key for the beauty of games like Oblivion, and while other, older AGP cards may on the surface seem faster in benchmarks this is simply because they don't support all the features and thus have less work to do.

Such high end AGP cards need extra power though (not sure, but I think they draw it from a standard IDE power connector) so make sure your power supply has a free connector of the right type and enough spare juice for the job.

Sad truth is though, that while the top of the line AGP cards can certainly handle today's games, they'll be struggling within a year or two, and there's no more room for upgrades on AGP... it simply doesn't have the bandwidth needed to support even faster cards. Probably the PCIE 7800s will struggle too around the same time, it's just that those can still be upgraded as the slot has bandwidth to spare as well as the option for SLI.

[Fineus]

Cheers for the info there, and for what it's worth I'm currently running:

Pentium 4 2.8GHz
2.0GB of DDR PC2100 RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro
etc. etc.

Should be able to deal with most games at this stage - and if I was so inclined I could replace the Pentium chip with something in the low/mid 3.0GHz range without changing the rest of the computer. As it is I don't want to arse about with new power supplies, motherboards and so on - I'd end up blowing all my money on that and not even having enough for a new graphics card. The Radeon already uses a spare power connector from my PSU to run so I guess that's not too much of a problem.

I'm currently looking at the cards on this page: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.ASP?CatID=15&FilterCategories=296&Thumbnails=yes

..and it seems like they'd all do the job. But I'd like to get a bit more technical and make certain. I've not really kept up to date on what the latest Shader versions and what have you are... but I'd like to be sure that the card is fairly future proofed to be able to run all current and upcoming games at full details without saying "oh, your card doesn't support pixel shader version 5.2 or whatever, so you can't use it". See where I'm going with this?

I'm happy to have a card that'll tide me over for a couple of years without any problems. Graphics and computer specs aren't priority number one for me at the moment though so I'm alright with making a few compromises.

[CP5670]

You're probably better off upgrading everything, given that AGP card prices and availability are simply terrible these days. A Sempron 2800 (can easily overclock to at least 2.3ghz), an Epox 8NPA7I board and a used 7800 GT CO off ebay would come out to about $340 around here, although I'm not sure what the UK prices are like.

Oblivion seems to like ATI cards at the high end, but I don't really know how the midrange cards compare.

[Shade]

CPU should be plenty fast enough for the time being, no reason to bother upgrading that. Give it a new video card and look at it go What you're looking for them to support is directx 9c/shader model 3.0, which is what the latest games want you to have to let you play at full detail.

From what I can see, those cards all seem to support it. You may want to avoid that 128mb card on the list there though, as some games demand 256mb to even let you try running at higher settings.

[CP5670]

The ATI X800 cards don't support shader model 3.0, although that isn't really important for the last gen cards. I guess the problem is that most of those cards cost less than half of their price on PCIE, so you're paying a huge markup just for AGP support.

That Gigabyte passive X800XL in that list actually has a pretty decent price, but it's not in stock and they're not going be getting any more. The other X800XL is your best bet out of the stuff in that list.

[Ghostavo]

It's that time again.

(...)

I'm looking for something that can play the likes of Oblivion or upcoming games on full graphics without flinching.

(...)

Unfortunately money is a problem as always so I'm not looking to spend more than £150 / £200 on this.

 

[Fineus]

The ATI X800 cards don't support shader model 3.0, although that isn't really important for the last gen cards. I guess the problem is that most of those cards cost less than half of their price on PCIE, so you're paying a huge markup just for AGP support.

That Gigabyte passive X800XL in that list actually has a pretty decent price, but it's not in stock and they're not going be getting any more. The other X800XL is your best bet out of the stuff in that list.

Would I be right in saying that nVidias 6800 and 7800 range have AGP capacity as well as being Shader 3.0 compliant?

It's quite important that the upgrade is worth it you see

[CP5670]

That site you linked to carries a couple of 7800 GSs that are actually decent deals by AGP standards. The two more expensive ones are close to the top of the pack for AGP in terms of speed and support SM3 and EXR HDR. You could also get one of the other two, which are significantly slower at stock speeds but can generally be overclocked to the same level. The AGP 6800 GSs aren't worth considering.

[Fineus]

Having done a bit of research into the 7800GS, I'm inclined to agree. It has all the shader support etc. that I was looking for as well as having enough "umph" for the time being. It's a bit on the pricey side but then I guess you get what you pay for. Shame ATI doesn't have a comperable card at this stage.

[ARSPR]

Cheers for the info there, and for what it's worth I'm currently running:

Pentium 4 2.8GHz
2.0GB of DDR PC2100 RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro
etc. etc.

I had a very similar PC (Presscot 2.8 HT + D865PERL + 1.5 GB DDR 400 + 9800 Pro 128) and I've just bought a XFX 7800 GS Extreme Ed. I can assure this card really makes a difference (and I know it is quite limited by the slow CPU). If you have a 3dMark05, you can compare your present 9800 with my score about 5250-5300 with 7800.

The only thing I must say is that these cards can be quite overclocked but there's a lot of issues about their stability (basically crashes to a blank screen, look in forums for more info). So maybe they aren't are overclockable as they firstly seem (it depends on exact card, PC and running software). Becaus of this I would buy just the standard version (GPU 375 Mhz - RAM 1200 Mhz), which will be a bit cheaper, and I would make the OC myself. (I haven't had any problems myself but in Far Cry with enabled HDR if I OC the card from its standard OC 440/1300 to 500/1400).

OTOH this cards have a temperature bug. If your PC is very very cool, the card gets fool and slow itself as if it were really hot. (Although I haven't suffered this issue). This issue can be solved with a flash of their same bios but with Temp protection disabled.

[Fineus]

In all honesty, I'd rather have a slightly slower but garunteed stable/not likely to catch fire card. I've had some bad experiences in the past with heat problems (lost a computer to it, basically) and don't much care to push the limits. It'd be an expensive loss if everything went belly up.

Is the card stable enough in its initially overclocked (440/1300) state, or are you saying that it can have issues even here, and that if I want the stability I should go for the slightly slower version?

[CP5670]

I haven't heard of any issues with the 7800 GSs. The stability problems were/are only on certain models of the 7800 GTs (both EVGA and XFX) and 7900 GTs (EVGA). At least with EVGA, the tech support and replacement system is probably the best of any video card manufacturer, so you should be okay even if you do happen to get a dud card. XFX's tech support reportedly sucks though.

[ARSPR]

In all honesty, I'd rather have a slightly slower but garunteed stable/not likely to catch fire card. I've had some bad experiences in the past with heat problems (lost a computer to it, basically) and don't much care to push the limits. It'd be an expensive loss if everything went belly up.

Is the card stable enough in its initially overclocked (440/1300) state, or are you saying that it can have issues even here, and that if I want the stability I should go for the slightly slower version?

Well, MY card is an Extreme Ed. which means it has a factory overclock to 440/1300 from 375/1200. With these speeds I haven't had any trouble at all and I've decided not to OC it as performance gain is very little. I've played FEAR, Half life 2 Lost Coast, Call of Duty 2, Far Cry (with HDR) and of course and over all of them, FS2. But some people DID HAVE troubles even with these speeds (you can check XFX forums or EVGA or whatever). OCed to 500/1400, I've played FEAR without problems but Far Cry crashes.

I've told two little lies about not having troubles:

1. XFX 7800GS Extreme Ed v1.0 had a stupid plastic layer INSIDE the fan cover which you have to remove unscrewing the cover. This has been solved in later versions. (Check www.guru3d.com article about this card where you can see this layer although they took it without unscrewing the cover  ).

2. This card can be quite energy demanding. The first time I plugged it in a free molex after HD, Floppy, my shaver and the microwave oven, when it changed to 3D mode and timings it started crying as hell through its internal speaker 'cause I suppose it hadn't enough power. So be sure you've got a good PSU (20 A in +12V rail is recommended by nvidia, and plug it the very first one to the PSU).

[IceFire]

In all honesty, I'd rather have a slightly slower but garunteed stable/not likely to catch fire card. I've had some bad experiences in the past with heat problems (lost a computer to it, basically) and don't much care to push the limits. It'd be an expensive loss if everything went belly up.

Is the card stable enough in its initially overclocked (440/1300) state, or are you saying that it can have issues even here, and that if I want the stability I should go for the slightly slower version?

Thats the trick with factory overclocked cards...you do have to watch out.  I'm a fan of the work done by BFG in this regards.  When I did some research for my brothers recently built machine I stumbled onto the voltage and heat graphs for a variety of GeForce 6600GT's.  All similar configurations with some stock and some overclocked.  The BFG card, despite having about a 10% increase in clock speed over the basic level was actually offering only slightly more voltage requirement at load and far less voltage required at idle.  Temperatures was a similar story except with the BFG OC card being cooler than the stock.

That said...there was another overclocked card on the list from another company with very poor results....so I think mileage will varry.  Do the research before you buy.

[Turnsky]

i think the best you can shoot for is either a radeon X850xt agp, or onna the agp geforce 7800 series, i'd advise the latter, since it has shader model 3, and can properly display HDR, wheras the 850xt cannot (trust me, i know, altho the bloom looks good regardless), both are comparable in performance, and my x850xt can run oblivion with 6x AA without even noticing. (and it's not even overclocked)

[IceFire]

I'm about to replace my 9700Pro with a X1600.  Its out of sheer necessity and pricing as my 9700Pro is dying and my price limit is under $200 Cdn and the X1600 is a good deal for a midline AGP card.