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Best upgrades for gfx card?

EranuEranu Member Posts: 191
in The Pub at MMORPG.COM

Hey guys,

 

Not sure if this comes under mmporgs or under an off topic subject however as i only play mmporgs or rpg's thought this would be suitable place to ask for opinions on best upgrade option from an nvidia 6600gt. Got a budget of £150 and would prefer factual opinions rather than hearsay if you dont mind so much please.

 

 

Greatness is difficult to appreciate from close up. The great mountain on the horizon is only the ground when you are standing on it.

Comments

  • OwenMcQOwenMcQ Member Posts: 91

    Hopefully you have a PCIe motherboard, since your options will be more numerous. If that is the case, then wait for the new NVIDIA 8800s to hit the shops in quantity, and drive down prices of the 7950 GTs a bit further.

    If you have an AGP motherboard, your options are pretty limited. The only upgrade path there is to a 6800 GT or 7800 GS. You'll notice a modest increase in performance, but probably not worth the money you'll spend. You'd be better off saving some more quid and "future-proofing" your current rig.

  • VociferorVociferor Member Posts: 98

     

    I'm pretty sure when I was looking into this last month that I found somewhere that claimed the latest ATI cards are outperforming the latest 7 series nVidia cards, don't quote me on that though and please no flames from disgruntled nVidia fans (I use nVidia cards myself).

    Newegg.com and Tomshardware.com are usually good stopping off places when doing research on new gear for your PC although there are plenty of sites out there dedicated to this subject.

    Hope that helps and good luck with your new buy.

    EDIT: oops, missed your price limit in the original post :P 

    Last time I was on Tomshardware.com they had an article about best gfx card in various price ranges, check that out for some additional information. 

    http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/11/07/the_best_video_cards_for_your_money_uk/

    If i find the other tests that compared the latest ATI to the latest 7 series nvidias I'll link it too, so that my first statement is factual and not just hearsay.  This wasnt the one I was thinking off but this seems to suggest the same thing (remember though that this is the october chart and there are some significant new cards being released in november):

    http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html

  • osc8rosc8r Member UncommonPosts: 688
    Originally posted by OwenMcQ
    Hopefully you have a PCIe motherboard, since your options will be more numerous. If that is the case, then wait for the new NVIDIA 8800s to hit the shops in quantity, and drive down prices of the 7950 GTs a bit further.If you have an AGP motherboard, your options are pretty limited. The only upgrade path there is to a 6800 GT or 7800 GS. You'll notice a modest increase in performance, but probably not worth the money you'll spend. You'd be better off saving some more quid and "future-proofing" your current rig.
    Agreed, listen to this man.


  • EranuEranu Member Posts: 191

    Thanks for the info guys. Alas no such luck  as my pc only has agp. Lookes like im gonna have to launder that money past the missus and invest in a new rig.

    Once again thanks

    Greatness is difficult to appreciate from close up. The great mountain on the horizon is only the ground when you are standing on it.

  • baffbaff Member Posts: 9,457

    Go to www.dabs.com buy either a Geforce or a Radeon sort by price and AGP, then pick the one closest to your budget.

    My next AGP card is going to be a 7600 for about £105. There was a nicer 7900 one there for £200, but that's way over my budget. 

  • paulscottpaulscott Member Posts: 5,613

    just go to tigerdirect.com

    select the video card part.

    and then the sub catogories of 512 MB VRAM,  and 1g MB VRAM.  users do review the product,  if its a bad product 80% of the time some one is going to complain while if its good they'll leave a comment 20-50% of the time.

    if you get a cheapy that doesn't have a fan on it, make sure you have good air ventilation on your case. 

    I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.

  • OwenMcQOwenMcQ Member Posts: 91

    Originally posted by Eranu
    Thanks for the info guys. Alas no such luck as my pc only has agp. Lookes like im gonna have to launder that money past the missus and invest in a new rig.
    Yeah, 'tis a shame. The next generation of MMORPGs (and some of the current, like EQ2) are extremely resource intensive.

    Again, picking up a 6800 GT or 7800 GS might be an improvement over what you have (depending upon the rest of your system, and at resolutions of 1280+), but it would just be a patch.

    If you already have a faster (~3GHz) CPU, and 1GB+ of RAM, then it might be worth it to pick up one of these cards on the used market from a trusted source (e.g. from a mate who upgraded his system) for cheap.

    If not, then you're going to be bottlenecked by your CPU/RAM moreso than your video card, and there's no sense in spending the money to upgrade either one of those on a dying, AGP platform.

  • CopelandCopeland Member Posts: 1,955

    Originally posted by OwenMcQ
    Hopefully you have a PCIe motherboard, since your options will be more numerous. If that is the case, then wait for the new NVIDIA 8800s to hit the shops in quantity, and drive down prices of the 7950 GTs a bit further.If you have an AGP motherboard, your options are pretty limited. The only upgrade path there is to a 6800 GT or 7800 GS. You'll notice a modest increase in performance, but probably not worth the money you'll spend. You'd be better off saving some more quid and "future-proofing" your current rig.

    AGP is the way to go.

  • crownedcrowned Member Posts: 4
    I've got nVidia 6600GT too and I've been thinking about upgrading.
    How do I tell whether I have an AGP or a PCI motherboard? I know, I know.. I'm a newb. image

    By the way, does it matter what kind of processor I have if I'd get a gfx card that supports DX10 like the new 8800 for example? I've got AMD Athlon 64 3200+  2.01GHz. Thanks in advance. :)



  • OwenMcQOwenMcQ Member Posts: 91

    Originally posted by Copeland
    AGP is the way to go.
    Hmm, sounds like you have some catching up to do.

    AGP has been pretty much dead for almost 2 years. Even the last generation of video cards (NVIDIA 7xxx, ATI x1xxx) are predominantly PCIe, other than a couple bones they've thrown at users who haven't made the switch yet.

  • daemonbarberdaemonbarber Member UncommonPosts: 78
    Originally posted by Copeland
    AGP is the way to go.


    PCI (not PCIe) has a maximum transfer speed of 133 MB/s

    AGP (8x) runs up to 2133 MB/s

    PCIe (16x) runs up to 4 GB/s


    PCIe 2.0 is slated for 2007 and will increase speeds to 8 GB/s.

  • n00biew0nn00biew0n Member Posts: 30

    The best AGP card is the X1950Pro for around £180 if you can find one (overclockers.co.uk has it on preorder) you'll also need a decent power supply to run it, and would be a substantial upgrade from a 6600GT.

    It also depends alot on your current system specs, having a slow CPU would hinder the new GPUs performance. A Athlon 64 3000+ equal or better should suffice.

    For £150 or less i wouldn't get anything lower than a 7600GT, they can be found for £130 if you look hard enough and performs on a par with a 7800GS.


  • devils_hymndevils_hymn Member Posts: 322

    i got a radon x1600 pro and the thing is killer i never lag haha and it was only 250$ and yes thats exspinsive but remember i live in hawaii everything is exspinsive

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