Gaming Quick advice regarding graphics cards

[xcalibur]

I'm gonna go buy a graphics card in a little bit but I was wondering since I had a motherboard with a x4 PCI-E slot rather than x16, is it going to affect it that much?
Especially considering I'm going to be buying a lowend card.

Also, which would be the best?

Gigabyte X1650 Pro 256mb
Gigabyte 7600GS 256mb
XFX 7300GT 512mb
Apogee 7300GT 256mb (ddr3)
MSI 8500GT 256mb

There all around the same price give or take a few dollars.

 

[xJonny]

I'm not aware that a PCI-e x16 graphics card can run on x4, and would be the speed of x4

The best card out of those is probably the ATi

 

[Westside]

The fact that you have PCI-E X4 means that no video card will work on the slot. The reason is that PCI-E X4 is about 1/3 of the size of X16 physically. Are you sure you don't have a PCI-E X16 or even an AGP slot?

Here is a picture of a motherboard with PCI-E X16, X4 and X1,

The first small yellow is your X4
the smallest white is X1
The big yellow is X16
The rest of them are OLD, and ancient PCIs.

 

[xJonny]

I think you can get PCI-e x1 to PCI-e x16 cards but yeah you may have an AGPx8 which older motherboards have.

 

[xcalibur]

Lol no, I mean that I have a regular sized PCI-E slot but it runs at x4 rather than x16.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mother...GA-8I945GZME-RH

Expansion Slots

1. 1 PCI Express x 16 slot (x4 bandwidth)
2. 3 PCI slots

Also, I think I saw a 6800GT here somewhere for cheaper than all the others. Should I just get that?

And yes, its 6800GT and not 8600GT.

 

[Westside]

Lol no, I mean that I have a regular sized PCI-E slot but it runs at x4 rather than x16.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mother...GA-8I945GZME-RH

Expansion Slots

1. 1 PCI Express x 16 slot (x4 bandwidth)
2. 3 PCI slots

Also, I think I saw a 6800GT here somewhere for cheaper than all the others. Should I just get that?

And yes, its 6800GT and not 8600GT.

I would agree on 6800GT as I think 8600GT would be bottlenecked by the bandwidth. 6800GT also has AGP versions which runs on similar bandwidth.

 

[xJonny]

I would think that it's roughly the same performance of that ATI Radeon x1650 pro.

Oh and what graphics card are you using at the moment?

 

[xcalibur]

I would think that it's roughly the same performance of that ATI Radeon x1650 pro.

Oh and what graphics card are you using at the moment?

pfft.. I'm using an integrated one atm...
My dad never bought a graphics card with this computer because he didn't want it to interfere with my studies. Now I'm almost finished so I'm just gonna go and buy it myself.

I've looked at some online reviews and I've seen that the 7600GS and X1650 Pro are similair in performance so I'm just going to buy whichever one is cheaper.

 

[Westside]

I would think that it's roughly the same performance of that ATI Radeon x1650 pro.

Oh and what graphics card are you using at the moment?

pfft.. I'm using an integrated one atm...
My dad never bought a graphics card with this computer because he didn't want it to interfere with my studies. Now I'm almost finished so I'm just gonna go and buy it myself.

I've looked at some online reviews and I've seen that the 7600GS and X1650 Pro are similair in performance so I'm just going to buy whichever one is cheaper.

sounds exactly like my dad. Anyway, X1650 is also a good choice. I don't know about 7600GS, just don't expect to play Crysis, but everything else should be fine.

 

[xcalibur]

I would think that it's roughly the same performance of that ATI Radeon x1650 pro.

Oh and what graphics card are you using at the moment?

pfft.. I'm using an integrated one atm...
My dad never bought a graphics card with this computer because he didn't want it to interfere with my studies. Now I'm almost finished so I'm just gonna go and buy it myself.

I've looked at some online reviews and I've seen that the 7600GS and X1650 Pro are similair in performance so I'm just going to buy whichever one is cheaper.

sounds exactly like my dad. Anyway, X1650 is also a good choice. I don't know about 7600GS, just don't expect to play Crysis, but everything else should be fine.

A 7600GS plays Crysis fine on Medium with 1280x1024 with no framerate issues. I've played one myself with a PC similar to mine.
If you set it on High, it'll play like a slideshow but it looks awesome as hell.

 

[xcalibur]

I went with a x1650 pro.
I saw an 8600GT but I realised that it probably would be held back too much on my motherboard so I bought the x1650 and used the difference to buy a cheap 80 gig HD.

EDIT: Yay! I went over to systemlabs and ran that "can you run it?" tool.
It seems I can play all games now

.

.... Except for Assassins Creed which needs a dual core for some reason.
I've read that you can still get away with using a single core though.

EDIT: I can also play .kkrieger

.

 

[xcalibur]

I have a small problem now...
My graphics doesn't work at boot for some reason. Whenever I turn on the computer, the monitor won't work until windows starts up.

The same thing for my inegrated card. I uninstalled it and disabled it in device manager yet it works at startup but not after windows comes on...

Is this something I need to enable on the bios?


Also not taht I didn't install anything off the CD because my DVD player is broke. I got all the latest drivers online from all the requiired sites.
I got the VGA utility from GigaByte (the V-Tuner 3 on it doesn't work but I don't care for overclocking.) I got ATi Catalyst from their site and the x1650 Pro drivers too...

 

[juggernaut911]

switch to the new PCI/AGP card via your bios. as long as you disable your onboard, it'll resort to your card

 

[xcalibur]

switch to the new PCI/AGP card via your bios. as long as you disable your onboard, it'll resort to your card

How would you do that?

 

[juggernaut911]

through your BIOS. the BIOS is your mobo firmware. that is what initiates your whole computer at bootup.

usually, you press delete, F8, F10, or F12 (in my cases). it'll take you to a ghetto menu, its pretty stright forward from there. you can also OC your processor in you BIOS! (in my case)

 

[xcalibur]

Oh dang...
My BIOS doesn't have that feature because its supposed to autodetect it...

 

[Lee79]

It is Normaly under Advanced Chipset Features or PnP/PCI Configurations section of the BIOS, then go to -"Init Display First"
If the value in "Init Display First" says "Onboard or AGP" change it to "PCIEx"

If there is no other setting in your BIOS that does anything for the video card, if it's not the setting described above, then there is nothing we can do in the BIOS anymore.

Try this:
Connect your monitor to the on board video card, boot up the PC and go to:

START icon
Settings -> Control panel
Click on "Add or Remove Programs"
Search for the on board display driver.
Uninstall it.

Restart the PC, after changing the monitor and attaching it to the new video card

Then go to the Device Manger right click "My Computer">"Manage" (or "My Computer">"Properties">"Hardware">"Device Manger") and find the on board VGA which should have a yellow question mark right cilick and "Disable" and your done.