Topic looking for a new video card

bigcanada813

i'm looking into getting a new video/sound card for my pc, and i was wondering if anyone had any knowledge on what's good out there. i'm also wondering if i will have to upgrade my processor, which is an AMD Athlon XP.

mmarsh

Ah, PC hardware, MY FAVORITE!!!

I can assist you, but first I need to have more info.

1. What is your budget?
2. What do you intend to do with the PC? Games, Video editing/encoding, Graphic design etc...

I have bad news for you...Chances are, unless you planning on only doing non graphic intensive applications (internet, MS Word, etc...), MS VISTA won't work neither. I'm going to recommend that you buy a new computer rather than upgrade here's why...

1. Heavy graphic applications (especially 3D, like games) run hand in hand with the CPU. If your CPU is too slow it will great a severe bottleneck on the new Graphics card in running your apps. Think of it as buying a Porsche 911 Turbo and then having drive it 30 mph. You are simply not using all the power available. For anything graphic intensive, you need a good (or at least decent) CPU. So a CPU investment is strongly recommended, which brings us to problem #2...

2. You have a major compatibility problem, both with the CPU and graphics card. Your current motherboard uses CPU Socket A, and a AGP slot. Neither are compatible with the newest hardware out there which is now AM2/Socket 775 and PCIe.

Upgrading the CPU alone means replacing the CPU, motherboard, RAM, video card (might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone) and the PSU. Thats almost a new computer right there...

Upgrading the CPU alone means you will have to get a new video card that uses AGP (and not PCIe). Today, there are almost no new cards that use AGP and the ones out there are VERY EXPENSIVE and MUCH SLOWER than the PCIe ones. To get a modest speed increase, you'll have to spend $300-$400 on a tech thats already dead and buried.

That is not a wise investment, I strongly discourage you from this.

You could get a complete Dell system starting at $350 without tax which will be slow be todays standards but will still run rings around your current rig and whatever AGP card you buy for your old system.

Talk to me before you buy anything...

bigcanada813

thanks for the info mmarsh. i hadn't really thought about how much i would spend, but from what you tell me, building a new computer would be better. I just had to replace the power supply in mine a couple weeks ago, and that alone cost a little over $100. i guess i'll have to get my dad's imput on the subject, seeing he's a software engineer and does alot of computer work.

-HAL-

I (unfortunately) know all about that..
My video card is getting pretty "ancient" right now, but when I bought it in october 2005 it was pretty good but very expensive since I had to buy an AGP card (couldn't afford to upgrade the CPU/Motherboard/memory).
Bought a Sapphire Radeon X800XL 256MB GDDR3 AGP8X for $360 + $40 for Artic Cooling kit, and I could have got a similar (or better) PCIe card at least 2/3 of that price...

So I agree with mmarsh that you should look for a completely new system instead of "throwing money out of the window" by buying a new AGP card now...

It depends on what kind of speakers you have and if it's for gaming only etc., but a Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme doesn't cost very much, and it's also possible that you don't need to buy a new sound card at all if you upgrade your motherboard since most new boards comes with decent integrated sound cards (for normal use...)

Sunb!

I cannot see how a PCI card could possibly be better than AGP handing graphics? I mean the AGP has higher data transfer rates when it is time to move the geometry stream from the CPU to the graphics card and it allows your OS to manage large amounts of textures in off screen memory as well as in system memory allowing the graphics card to access these textures directly in either location (resulting in more flexible memory management) and of course has a faster clock speed and bus pipelining.

In my opinion PCI is taking one step back but that of course depends on the usage of your PC as an end user. Have in mind it is a long time ago I were into the hardware business so I might have missed something the past couple of years though.

mmarsh

SunB!

You misunderstand.

-HAL- is not talking about PCI, he's referring to PCIe (the "e" is for express) PCIex16 is the newest standard and its data tranfer is vastly superior than that AGP 8X.

As for the Creative X-Fi, you might want to be careful. Creative has had some problems with that card. Apparently it seems to conflict with certain types of Motherboards which cause a hissing/cracking sound. This has hit about 1 in 5 people. The Audigy 4 is a safer bet UNLESS you plan on doing audio recording/editing/sampling etc...In which case I would recommend you look at the Turtle Beach soundcards anyway...

If you do buy the X-Fi at least make sure that you can return it. If you just doing games/music/etc it really doesn't make much difference if you get an older card, just make sure it supports the speaker setup you have (5.1, 7.1 etc...) I use a Audigy2 ZS, works fine.

-HAL-

That's certainly correct, I just forgot to add the e in PCI..

Sunb!

Haha, okay I am with you now and it makes sense. As I said I am a bit outdated on the hardware section and I certainly have missed the PCIe. Thanks for the info guys!

bigcanada813

thanks for all the input guys, i think i'll just save my cash to get a new pc and just stick with the one i got for the time being (being a broke college student sucks).

mmarsh

Thats the probably the wiser course of action. And don't worry about being a broke college student, I have been there.