Hardware AGP video cards

jeronz

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Ok, so I'm using a geforce fx5200. My motherboard is ASUS P4S533-E 478 socket and doesn't support PCI-E (obviously because its like a 2002 mobo). It supports AGP 8x. So i've been looking for an upgrade without spending too much money. Is a Radeon x1650 pro 512mb AGP good? Is there anyway I can be certain that my mobo supports it? I can't afford a whole new system and frankly I'm happy with my other computers components.

Also I've already changed the hardware in my computer three/four times. I've added in a new harddrive, new DVD drive, extra ram, and I've changed the power supply over the years. My XP is legit, would it get all freaky on me if I changed the video card? (I know it doesn't like it if you change too many components)

Another thing, my video card seems to be stuck from the last time I opened my computer to dust it, and I wanted to have a look at the slot. Is there any safe way to remove a video card if its stuck, or am I just not pulling hard enough?

EDIT: on further investigation it appears my motherboards chipset supports AGP4x and AGP2x cards, but geforcefx5200 is 8x so I'm confused.
 

jeronz

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I can't find a store with 1650 XT in my country
frown.gif
It seems like a lot of people have problems with x1650 pro but its just testimony/anecdotal no data. hmm 7600gs stats look good...But yeah wikipedia says that AGP is backward and forward compatable so 8x cards work in 4x slots. The only thing is I have to find out what voltage the AGP slot is at. It'll either be 1.5V, 3.3V or both. The fx5200 is universal (supports both), so that doesn't give me a clue, and the manual doesn't say. Does anyone know how I can find out?

EDIT:

Dack: I did pull that clip thing. Maybe I just need to pull harder. I wonder if dust can clog it up.

DOUBLE EDIT:

just found a good deal on a Geforce 6800GT! but its second hand, a year old. I think it should be OK 7 day warranty.
 
D

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look on CircuitCity.com. I bought my FX 5200 on there for like $35 and I remember there being a 512 MB for not too much more.
 

jeronz

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TeenDev said:
look on CircuitCity.com. I bought my FX 5200 on there for like $35 and I remember there being a 512 MB for not too much more.

Pretty sure circuit city doesn't ship internationally. FX 5200 512? I didn't think something like that exists. Or do you mean a 512MB video card in general. Video ram size is not a good indicator of video card performance. And, I'm fairly sure its not the ram size thats bottlenecking my performance. Its things like the memory bandwidth, clock speed, fill rates and other operations. But I lost the bid for the 6800 GT
frown.gif
Oh well I'll keep looking.

EDIT: I just got a fixed price offer on the 6800 GT
biggrin.gif
yay. I think it's worse than the best card mentioned here 1650 XT, but I couldn't find the 1650 XT anywhere. And my Intel CPU would probably be upset for getting an AMD card! The 6800 GT will be a significant upgrade I think. Now I've just got to wait till it arrives. I paid NZ$108 for it - around US$80 including shipping.

6800 GT
Core clock: 350mhz
memory clock: 500mhz
memory bandwidth: 32 GB/s
shader: 5600
pixel fill: 5600
texture fill: 5600
vertex: 525

1650 XT
Core clock: 575mhz
memory clock: 675mhz
memory bandwidth: 21.6 GB/s
shader: 13800
pixel fill: 4600
texture fill: 4600
vertex: 1150

FX 5200
Core clock: 250mhz
memory clock: 200mhz
memory bandwidth: 6.4 GB/s
shader: 1000
pixel fill: 1000
texture fill: 1000
 

jeronz

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Xcalibur said:
If you can't find an X1650 XT/pro, a 7600GS is the next best option.
The 6800GT is just too old for me IMO.


I found this really awesome table of graphics cards ordered from fastest to slowest. Yes 6800 GT is older than 7600 GS, but 6800 GT IS a better card. Heres the table http://www.playtool.com/pages/vidtable/table.html. Look at the yellow list (AGP) 7600 GS was given a speed of 17.9, the 6800 GT was given a speed of 23.3. fx 5200 is the number one slowest of the direct x 9 cards!! (speed of 1.69)

Anyway the update is that I picked up the card today and installed it. I ran into a couple nooby problems. I didn't realise I needed to connect a molex connector onto it (my fx 5200 doesnt need a connector and it didn't say in the manual that the 6800gt needed a connecter) So the computer was beeping at me. Then the second problem I ran into was that I didn't have enough molex connectors (only had 4), so I sacrificed one of my two dvd drives and had to rearrange everything so that the cable would reach the graphics card!!

But its so fast now! I haven't done extensive tests, but I've been playing spore creator creator. Before it barely ran on low settings and had a really poor framerate. Now it runs really smoothly with everything on high! Edit: Titan quest now runs at ~20fps with everything on high - it was unplayable before.

One down side is now my computer is a bit louder because the 6800 GT has its own fan, while the fx 5200 just had a heatsink thingy.

By the way, I couldn't get the fx 5200 out of the slot originally because I wasn't pushing the clip thing hard enough.
 

mkoo

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I also have a motherboard with only AGP 4X Support (damn I remember having only PCI)
The point is, even you have a Geforce 7900 as long as you dont have a Dual Core CPU (or perhaps 3.0+ Pentium 4) I dont belive it will do much good.
 

laminaatplaat

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IF you are looking into the ATI products first look on the forums of the brand to look for problems with the firmware! (example: Sapphire HD AGP series http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=18262) the firmware support can be very shitty. It is also important to look if your computers has a big enough power supply because AGP cant give these newer video cards enough power. you need a direct connection with your power supply.
 

jeronz

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Thanks for all the help but I'm sticking with the 6800GT that I got second hand. I wanted a good card that wasn't too expensive and I found it. No its not the best AGP card but it was available and cheap. My CPU is only a intel P4 2.4Ghtz 512Kbit so I was worried that I wouldn't get much of a performance boost, but the boost is very much there. But I now have a CPU cooling problem, after 20 minutes of gaming it gets to ~68 degrees celsius and then the game locks up. I don't have a case fan (!), so I'm going to try out an 80mm and see if that helps.

And I realised about the power supply thing, but I have a 400W and it was big enough.
 

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