Looking to upgrade video cards in my old pcs

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:48 am

Hey i'm running a pretty crappy pentium 3 but it still runs really decent.

The specs are
Pentium 3, 750mhz
768MB RAM
Geforce 6200

Now the geforce I have has pixel shader 3 and holds up pretty damn good. I can run unreal 2k4 at max settings on this pc which always impressed me.
I've got a AGP slot but the card i'm using is a pci. I was told it was the best pci card that you could easly buy anymore.
What i'm looking to do is find out first what speed my AGP slot is. Next I wanna know what would the most logical video card to get to maxium the preformance of this pc.
I know its throwing money into a wasted cause but I wanna get the absolute best card to make sure i've maxed this pc completly then I wanna get a nice case and just simply be finshed with this pc.

So what card should I get before it gets to the point where no matter how good the card is it wont be able to use its full power due to the pc specs?
Also again how do I find out what speed my agp slot is?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150190 < thinking out getting that. I think that would be more than enough just to polish off the system and not over kill. I have better pcs so dont go the route of recomending I upgrade to a whole new rig. This is simply about keeping this one as current as I can. My dual core pc is fine for current stuff.

So would it really give any profermance boost at all to the games it runs.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:54 am

Use WhatCPU or CPU-Z to find out what you have.. but my guess is that you have an AGP 2X/4X slot.

Your link fails hard though.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:11 am

There re editing the link. sorry

Those programs dont seem to tell me my agp alot speed though. Like if i get a AGP X8 card will it still run in my pc even if its not 8x? Or will it simply not work.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:27 am

You still need to find out what AGP slot you are using. I doubt you can use any of the AGP 8x hardware if you don't have a 4x AGP slot.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:39 am

Yeah looks like i'm screwed as its defanitly a 2x slot.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:47 am

There should be a number of AGP4x cards that "should be better"... but that would be like the ~Radeon 8500/Geforce 4 era...

Really, you are SOL here. Hmmm.. there should be some other options available, but it is nearly pointless to upgrade from where you're at unless you change the mobo...

Edit: Here's looks like an available ATI PCI video card... http://www.diamondmm.com/X1550PRO256P.php

I'll see if I can find one from NVidia that is a bit more modern.

Post by **odditude** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:52 am

What motherboard do you have? Or, if you know, what chipset is it based off of?

If you can't get that information, here's some general info. If you have a socket 370 motherboard, you almost definitely have an AGP 2.0 slot If you have a slot 1 board, it's going to be a 50/50 shot. To tell for sure, you can look at the physical AGP slot and compare versus the images here. If it matches the picture for either "AGP 1.5V" or "AGP Universal" then you have an AGP 2.0-compatible slot.

PNY's 7600GS only needs AGP 2.0, so it's likely the same for ALL 7600GS AGP cards.

Keep in mind, however, that you're probably already past the point of diminishing returns due to CPU bottlenecking. If that's the case, getting another 6200 in AGP instead might give you the exact same results for less cash.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:08 am

http://www.sparkle.com.tw/News/SP85_73_ ... I_EN1.html

It is only an announcement, but that is an option if you are still looking for an upgrade.

As odditude has suggested, the bottleneck will be the CPU though (you should be able crank up the IQ though w/o penalty for these reasons alone.. even if it may be a tad slow overall).

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:12 am

Technicolly is that PCI 8500 better than this card?

Also a quote from user reviews "My box has the ECS 845GV-M3 mobo which has an "AGP Express" slot. (Not a widely supported item.) But will run this card just fine. "

So chances are it will run on 1.5v agp2x right?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:19 am

clessoulis wrote:Technicolly is that PCI 8500 better than this card?

Probably, but you know you can use this card for backup (for longevity purposes) for another system when its video card fails. Your CPU will still be the problem, regardless.

Also a quote from user reviews "My box has the ECS 845GV-M3 mobo which has an "AGP Express" slot. (Not a widely supported item.) But will run this card just fine. "

So chances are it will run on 1.5v agp2x right?

Just read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Graphics_Port

AGP Express
Not a true AGP interface, but rather a way to allow an AGP card to be connected over the legacy PCI bus on a PCI Express motherboard. It is a technology found on ECS motherboards, and is used as a selling point for AGP card owners who want a new motherboard but do not want to be forced to buy a PCIe graphics card as well (most new motherboards do not provide AGP slots, only PCIe slots). An "AGP Express" slot is basically a PCI slot (with the electrical power of two) in the AGP form factor. While it offers backward compatibility with AGP cards, its disadvantages include incomplete support (some AGP cards do not work with AGP Express) and reduced performance - the card is forced to use the shared PCI bus at its lower bandwidth, rather than having exclusive use of the faster AGP.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:39 am

What I dont understand is AGP 2x has a faster data transfer rate that pci so how could getting a pci card even if it supports more features be better as it has a slower trasnfer speed.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:43 am

clessoulis wrote:What I dont understand is AGP 2x has a faster data transfer rate that pci so how could getting a pci card even if it supports more features be better as it has a slower trasnfer speed.

I'd say it has a lot to do with demand+compatibility (I mean, there are so many fucking AGP slots variants that supporting them all is a waste of time). PCI has been stable for a long time anyways. It will go the way of ISA at some point, but it will take quite a bit more time before this happens.

Anyways, your AGP Express slot is simply a something that connects AGP cards but treats them as PCI cards (in other words, it's a slot with no AGP performance benefits). It is really crappy IMO.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:04 am

I have a agp 1.5v slot. I checked out the actual intel mafutures manual.

So my AGP 2x 1.5v has a better speed than pci right?

Plus agp express is still better than pci just because it has more of selection of agp cards.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:16 am

clessoulis wrote:I have a agp 1.5v slot. I checked out the actual intel mafutures manual.

So my AGP 2x 1.5v has a better speed than pci right?

If it was a normal AGP 2x slot, sure but..

Plus agp express is still better than pci just because it has more of selection of agp cards.

Sure it is.. but you are not reading what I wrote. The card is effectively treated as a PCI card in terms of performance. All you have is AGP compatibility, but that's it. Part of the AGP spec allows for your AGP card to operate in PCI mode. This is simply the equivalent of having a PCI video card. AGP Express enforces "PCI mode" by design.

Post by **odditude** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:36 am

Deathlike2, he has a normal AGP 4X slot, not that bastardized ECS implementation. He was only quoting from a user review while asking a question.

Clessoulis - yes, your AGP slot is significantly faster than a PCI slot.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:35 pm

Bah to quoting a user review.

I did suggest to use WhatCPU or CPU-Z to determine the AGP slot... again.. noone listens to what I suggested earlier.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:50 pm

with CPU-Z, check the motherboard tab.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:21 pm

Yeah my graphics interface is greyed out when using cpu z plus Death you kept rambling on like 4 times after I mentioned it was a agp 2x slot.

casualsax3 · Post by **casualsax3** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:26 pm

Do yourself a favor and spend the $150 on an AthlonX2 and mobo - you can get a Dual Core 3800X2 and board for maybe less than that nowadays.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:31 pm

clessoulis wrote:Yeah my graphics interface is greyed out when using cpu z plus Death you kept rambling on like 4 times after I mentioned it was a agp 2x slot.

I also suggested WhatCPU as well.

In any case, it's simply too risky to use the AGP slot for any AGP card sold (unless you don't care). I've already provided you with the PCI video card options.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:43 pm

I'ma just try the agp cause I dont care I have another pc it can go into that deseperatly needs a card too but from previous users and information odditude posted I see it working.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:56 pm

casualsax3 wrote:Do yourself a favor and spend the $150 on an AthlonX2 and mobo - you can get a Dual Core 3800X2 and board for maybe less than that nowadays.

You totally didnt even read my first post. This are just pcs I like to play around with to see how far I can push them. I have a Intel Core 2 duo pc with 2gb of ram and a geforce 8800. This is just one of my older ones I like to play around with.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:33 am

I hunt around for a used good p3 board, should be next to free.