Well time for a upgrade.. main reason is graphics. currently got a FX 5900 and im after a 6800 Ultra. (or one of these new 7500 thingies) two options really, I could just get a AGP version but then I might have to upgrade later , or jump to a 939 board with PCI-e (and SLi). I currently have a 754 cpu and mobo, So if I go PCI-e im gonna have to upgrade mobo and CPU, and probibly RAM So what would you do, and why? also is there much differance in AGP and one PCI-e card?
7800... not 7500.. Anyways, if you want to save some money, just get a 6800GT Non ultra AGP. Most can overclock to ultra speeds out of the box. If you want to upgrade (which you really don't need to do, seeing that 754 isn't all that old) your cpu and motherboard... go ahead, but you'll be dropping a whole hell of a lot more money.
Even the 6800 or X800 are a big step up although 6800GT & X800XL are very tasty. Since you already have 754 it wouldn't make much sense IMHO to splash out another wad of cash on CPU+mobo (RAM should be fine) esp given that AMD will be converging all the current platforms to a new socket in 12-18 months. It's hard to fork out £200 for an AGP card when you know AGP mobos are on the way out and 754 won't get any more Athlon64 CPUs (it seems) but by the time you NEED to upgrade your mobo your AGP card will probably seem a little outdated anyway so you can go PCI-E then. There may even be more demand for the higher-end AGP cards, who knows? If you go 939 and PCI-E now your kit should last a little longer and you should gleen some extra perf ... plus 754 kit is still buyable too (so you may get a decent price for your old stuff). It's completely up to you, I wouldn't say either option is a bad one. In terms of actual perf the AGP cards and PCI-E cards are for all intents and purposes identical, 6600GT AGP come slightly lower clocked but nothing remotely significant. PCI-E just has good 2-way bandwidth and provides the card with more power (so you don't need so many external power connectors).
So complete system upgrades for PCI-E aren't easy to justify atm then? I'm curious since i'm still with AGP, and in need of a new card soon, but the rest of my system is fine.
Well the problem is that although PCI-E is here to stay Skt939 is likely to be steadily phased out in 2006 so it's not like you'll really be getting great longevity from an expensive upgrade. If you have SktA or 533FSB P4 then you might as well make the leap to both 939 & PCI-E, esp as you'll almost certainly want to upgrade the gfx card. If you have A64 via 754 it simply makes more financial sense to grab a better gfx card for more perf. Just MHO.
My P4 is of the 800fsb type, do you think me simply upgrading to say a 600gt/6800 would last me until 2006 phase time?
IMHO yes, esp if you can run (or o/c to) 3.6ghz or more. CPUs for gaming is overhyped, by the time you hit an average of 60FPS with decent details, res & AA+AF it's the gfx card which is by far the most significant factor. That's not to say it isn't worth having a great CPU but as ever do consider the financial commitment vs actual gains, esp if your new CPU socket could be disappearing next year. If someone is stuck with a 533FSB P4, a SktA system or possibly even an 800FSB 3.0ghz P4 then it's well worth upgrading esp if you want anything faster than a 6600GT. Also just to cover it there's little point in going to fast P4 or A64 unless you have at least 6600GT and preferably something better really. All this combined with PCI-E replacing AGP is why it's just so dang expensive!
coolage, when these new cards come out I'll have a look at what they can do and stick with agp for now
Go with PCIE. It's the way of the future, no point trying to prolong AGP. You'll have to upgrade at some point, might as well do it now so you won't wish you did later on when some other must-have card is out only on PCIE (I'd love to say PPUs, but it's just about fact that there'll be versions of each). Not only in the here and now, but think about when the 8800's come out (or whatever). That'll almost certainly be PCIE only, and by that time AGP will probably be all but dead. Good luck selling a 6/7 series on AGP at that time. And for the record, they have socket 754 PCI-Express mobos. They're fairly cheap too, and imo the extra $70 or so (dunno availability or pricing over the big pond) is worth it. Especially if you figure s754 will be mostly gone by early '06 and s939 probably gone late '06 I'd imagine (for whatever reasons, power demand from quad-core I'd expect), you don't need to spend another significant amount on a CPU and RAM.
Hmm, this is a rather intersting thread. I too, am in a similar predicament. I NEED (not want, need) a new video card as mine is rather old (check the sig). But I also want to make the move to 64 bit. So (and I apologize for the blatant hijack here) should I buy an X800PRO (what I can afford) and wait until next year to build the 64bit PC, or should I just not worry about any of this and just build the damn thing as money comes in over time???
AGP8x isn't limiting for the X800XL or 6800GT and even AGP4x (with half the bandwidth) doesn't hurt the 9800Pro or 6600GT, so at least there shouldn't be any significant impact on perf. There's no doubt PCI-E is the future of course. However if the choice is between buying a new mobo for PCI-E and a mid-range gfx card (like 9800Pro or 6600GT) versus keeping your current A64/P4 AGP mobo and buying a higher-end AGP gfx card (like X800XL or 6800GT) the latter will be easier, faster and most likely cheaper too. If you need a new mobo it makes sense to go PCI-E, as an idea the X700Pro is a good and cheap mid-range card which offers slightly better perf than the 9800Pro and only a tiny bit less than the popular 6600GT. So you needn't be heavily out of pocket by switching to PCI-E. If you have a slower CPU such as any SktA or a P4 slower than 3.2ghz (or so) then there's very little point in using anything faster than a 6600GT unless you'll be upgrading the CPU (and hence mobo) soon after, at which point AGP is not such a good idea. Similarly there's little point putting anything slower than 6600GT (or X700Pro) into a very fast system such as the fast P4 or the A64, in fact it's ideal to go for something faster like X800XL or 6800GT where you can really reap the rewards ... but if you need mobo, gfx and possibly even CPU the cost is very significant. Going 64bit is not at all important at this time and is unlikely to be for at least a year. M$ want to force you to exclusively using either std WinXP or WinXP x64, ie. not have both on your HD(s). The main problem is that you need specific 64bit drivers for ALL your hardware and very little has decent 64bit drivers available, I imagine a lot of hardware will never have 64bit drivers. On top of all this 64bit doesn't bring significant perf gains esp in this transitionary period. I imagine that by the time 64bit and WinXP x64 is useful most people will surely be wanting or using Longhorn.
All of you people (esp you automagsrock) who say they need a video card lol I would like you to come over to my house and meet the "beast" GeForce MX440 64mb oh yeah! So if you ever upgrade from your 9600xt to something better would you be interested in helping me out some and givign me your card! Please
True, but a 3000+ A64 will kick the bejesus out of a 3000+ A32 in gaming. Yes, 64-bit driver support SUCKS. I mean, SLI doesn't work at all in it. You think nVidia would have their pet project working with the "newest" OS. Yes, by the time the 64-bit part of 64bit procs is useful, we'll have an OS that supports it well. For the time being, the A64 archtecture owns in games, and the Intel part is just marketing and futureproofing. However I still insist that regardless of your current system, it's really stupid to buy any high-end graphics card in AGP. Midrange or lower I can see (unless you're upgrading the whole system, in which case you're a retard, plain and simple, to stay on AGP), but assuming you'll sell the card at some point in the future, AGP won't be in demand at all (read: PCI video cards now) and waitandbleed, I've got a beaster pliers-modded 64MB MX420 that's functioning perfectly in my "media center" (modded to fit in a very ghetto custom case as part of a school project, can't see for the life of me why I didn't just unscrew the rear bracket...)
I was making the point of not needing a 64bit OS rather than saying use a 32bit AthlonXP instead of a 64bit Athlon64. The Athlon64 is a very good CPU and its speed is derived from its integrated memeory controller and NOT from its 64bit support. An important thing to note is that the AthlonXP and Athlon64 perf rating is not meant to be comparable with each other just as the P4's 'ghz' aren't comparable when using different FSB speeds (eg 533FSB vs 800FSB). The AthlonXP's perf rating is comparable to the 'ghz' of a P4 with 533FSB only, so AthlonXP3000+ = P4 3.06ghz (533FSB) but even the AthlonXP3200+ isn't faster than the P4 3.0ghz (800FSB) nor the Athlon64_2800+. Of course if you're buying/making a whole new system it makes sense to go straight for PCI-E. As I said earlier the X700Pro & 6600GT offer very good perf for a reasonable price so anyone upgrading from AGP needn't spend huge sums of money. However the point I was making was that if people already have a fast CPU+mobo (eg any A64 or P4 > 3.2ghz) which uses AGP they'd find it cheaper, easier and with far superior perf to simply add in a more expensive AGP gfx card (like X800XL or 6800GT) instead of switching to a PCI-E mobo and adding a mid-range gfx card (eg X700Pro or 6600GT). Obviously it's ideal to move to PCI-E and buy a fast PCI-E gfx card but this can cost a very significant amount of money. It's really up to each indivdual to make their own call. I doubt demand for fast AGP gfx cards will drop off until late next year so there's plenty of time to make the move to PCI-E and ideally do so when you can make the mobo last (like with AMD's or Intel's new CPU Sockets). There's even a slight possibility that fast AGP cards may devalue less than their PCI-E equivilent, at least for a breif period. Also factor in that there are many people who lack the technical skills to swap out their mobo so will be looking for a good gfx card to save them having to completely ditch their old PC and buy another bargain from Dell (and co). PCI cards fell out of demand quicker because mobos could simultaneously support both at full speed and PCI was becoming limiting both in selection and perf. 8xAGP simply isn't, mobos can only support one or the other at full speed, AGP demand is still very much present and best of all it doesn't hinder gfx perf.
