Graphics Card

[Cap J]

I'm looking to get a new graphics card. I don't know what one would work best with my system though. Any ideas?

My current system is:

Athlon XP 2200+
512MB (el cheapo) RAM
Motherboard....uuhhh....pass. The box only says the make name "Mainboard" and the manual (which I don't know where it is right now) had details for several different boards in it.
PSU....again, mystery. I wouldn't imagine it's good though.

Current graphics card is a Sapphire Radeon 9200SE 128MB.

I am intending on buying a new motherboard and such. The bundle I'm intending on getting is:

Athlon 64 3200
Abit UL8
512MB GeIL PC3200
Which is £167 on Overclockers. If you have any better suggestions those are also welcome.

And my budget for a card is around £50-£70. I'd also have to get a new PSU as well.

 

[Killface]

Damn, there isnt any way i can help you unless I knew more detailed info on your motherboard. Poor choice to pass on, since that is the most important item that i need info on.

Im guessing its AGP 8x so I'd get a geforce 6600/6600GT if you wanted to go on the "budget" end and a 6800GT if you wanted to go on the higher end. It all really depends on what you want to do. you want to play high end games or just medium/high end games?

 

[Cap J]

I know. >_< It sucks that I have no idea about the board but at the time it was a cheap upgrade offer at some computer shop.

My GeForce 4 (I put that back in earlier as my Radeon has for some reason started giving me stop errors after being fine for over a year) says that it's AGP 2x.....so as you can tell my board sucks. But I do intend on upgrading the board so even if it won't run on this system I'd use it on the new one.

High end games are always a nice option. Would be nice for HL2 to run faster.

Edit:

Is £60 a good price for a 256MB 6600?

 

[Killface]

alright your gonna upgrade the board it sounds like, do you want me to help you find a mobo also?

 

[|Overlord|]

AMD is going to socket AM2 (formely Socket m2) in Q2 of this year. The new platform will supprot dd2 memory. Single core chips to be released on this platform are 3500+, 3800+ & 4000+ (if memory servers me right). Socket 939 will still be supported by amd but no faster chips are expected to be released on socket 939 as the last socket 939 chip, the FX-60 dual core is the last chip that was jsut released on socket 939.

If you can wait for the new platform you have something to upgrade with. However if you can't wait I'd suggest getting a gig of memory, & if your'e getting a a64 setup you might wanaa pair some good memory with it that has low or decent timings (value memory has some good timings, and standard memory timnigs are usually not so much higher, & you can get mroe expensive memory with lower timing, and a64 chips like low latency memory). I myself have a geil stick and I can say Geil is a good brand, however if I were you I would go with patroit memory (since patroit being a division of infeon, and those ram chips on the ram sticks are what oems use & are of high quality), but again it all depends on how much you can spend, they should have value kits out on the market if your'e lucky.

If you'r planning to take that generic stick of ram you have in your current to setup to your next setup, I wouldn't advise it but you can do it if you want or jsut get anotehr new 512stick along with the new 512stick you paln to get. I take it you checked these prices on overclocker's uk? they seem to have corsair XL memory going for some good prices (Again i suck at price differences but meh, sorry to get a little technical but meh, it's jsut me going "this this this, that that that" sought of thing and putting the pros and cons).

As for gfx cards, this link has some prices for ati cards in your price range and this one for some Nvidia cards. For not much more you can get a 6600gt for #UK$# 81.95, witch would go well with your planned upgrade if you can extend you budget a little more.

EDIT: stay away from the 256mb 6600's, tehy can't beat 128mb 6600gt cards & only use GDDR2memory where as gt versions have GDDR3 memory chips on the gfx card. As for a motherboard, I would go for a DFI nforce4 mainboard that fits in your price range, tehy can overclock well if you plan to overclock you cpu. Depending on stepping most 3200+ venice chips can get to 2.6 - 2.8 on stock cooling (dependent of the airflow of your case too).

 

[Killface]

dammit, overlords on. he's gonna **** up everything. Go away man!

lol, im just joking with you.

lets not get him spending thousands of dollars man. I think that he's on the ball with his choice of a processor. as for the RAM, double it to 1 gig. you'll thank yourself later. now as for a mobo im not gonna search for one but i'd get one that has PCIe (SLI perferably) Socket 939 of course, supports up to PC3200 memory (dont go higher than PC3200, any higher is considered DDR2 and i've heard that DDR2 is unstable), chip set doesnt really matter to me, since what ever kind you get will be okay. and your video card... get a 6600GT and you'll be fine dude, that'll run half-life 2 at full specs great. your PSU... go get atleast a 450 watt PSU that supports PCIe, SLI, SATA and Athlon 64 processors/Pentium 4.

so. your list consists of...
XFX GeForce 6600GT (can be any brand, really)
1 gig of ram (atleast PC2700, try to get PC3200 if you can)
450 PSU (atleast 450)
A good mobo with all of the stuff I said above (be sure to get socket 939)
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor. (also socket 939)

I'll let overlord find you some good stuff that falls into those categories. in case he doesnt, i'll search tomorrow for you. And dont let anyone talk you outta it, that list i gave you might not be descriptive, but its a good setup. Keep that one, unless someone can find something better.

 

[Cap J]

Awesome. Thanks for the help.

As for a board, what I really want to do is get one in a bundle with a CPU + RAM as then I wouldn't have to worry about the compatibility issues. This is what I was intending on getting. The one at the top but it doesn't have PCIE so I guess that's out. The price range for a board, CPU, and RAM would be at most £200 for me, which is another reason why I was going for a bundle. I soooooo need a job. >_<

Uhhh...what's SLI? ^^" (Geez...you wouldn't believe that I'm a qualified support technician...I suck).

Heh, I would LOVE to be able to spend thousands on a single unit. It would be so sweet.

 

[|Overlord|]

dammit, overlords on. he's gonna **** up everything. Go away man!

lol, im just joking with you.

lets not get him spending thousands of dollars man. I think that he's on the ball with his choice of a processor. as for the RAM, double it to 1 gig. you'll thank yourself later. now as for a mobo im not gonna search for one but i'd get one that has PCIe (SLI perferably) Socket 939 of course, supports up to PC3200 memory (dont go higher than PC3200, any higher is considered DDR2 and i've heard that DDR2 is unstable), chip set doesnt really matter to me, since what ever kind you get will be okay. and your video card... get a 6600GT and you'll be fine dude, that'll run half-life 2 at full specs great. your PSU... go get atleast a 450 watt PSU that supports PCIe, SLI, SATA and Athlon 64 processors/Pentium 4.

so. your list consists of...
XFX GeForce 6600GT (can be any brand, really)
1 gig of ram (atleast PC2700, try to get PC3200 if you can)
450 PSU (atleast 450)
A good mobo with all of the stuff I said above (be sure to get socket 939)
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor. (also socket 939)

I'll let overlord find you some good stuff that falls into those categories. in case he doesnt, i'll search tomorrow for you. And dont let anyone talk you outta it, that list i gave you might not be descriptive, but its a good setup. Keep that one, unless someone can find something better.

Already found him a gfx card & recomended A motherboard from DFI that fits into his budget of what he can afford. SLI is a good option but two 6600gt cards can't beat a single 7800gt card, something to witch he could upgrade to later on when they become cheaper if he wanted to, I dunno if he'd make use of SLI anyway. If you do intend to make use of sli then yes 450w psu seems to be a good option (just make sure it's not a generic no-frills psu). A 400w should be plenty for you, even if it is a generic psu, but the branded ones are always gonig to be better (a bit pricey too, but i'' search around for a decent psu for you). For a mainboard the best amd boards I have seen are the DFI NF4 Ultra-d & DFI NF4 SLI-DR, both based on the nvidia's nforce4 chipsets (I'd go with the SLI-DR imo).

As I said in my previous post, to get a 2x512kit of memory (witch is 1gb of memory if your'e to lasy to do math ). Walamart is also correct in stating that you'll be giving youself a pat on the back for getting a gig of memory).

Where did you here ddr2 was unstable? I got my cousion running some ddr667 memory and it works fine for him, must of been a faulty stick of a crappy brand stick that was unstable. Socket 939 setups don't support ddr, but amd's next platform, Socket AM2 does.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Corsair_Value_Select.html This memory seems to be pretty good for the prices. If you could at all afford you could get 2gb (2x1gb) of memory for UK99.95 (I wish I had a uk currency sign on my keyboard :*(). A 1gb (2x512) you can get 51.95. Just make sure if your'e going to buy memory like this then get cas2.5 and not cas3 memory (your amd chip's memory controller likes memory with lower latencies). TYhe price difference is not huge at all between cas3 and 2.5 kits anyway as listed on this page.

For a GF6600GT card i'd say get a leadtek card. Link I gave you earlier shows you can get the leadtek 6600gt for 81.95 & the 6600gt extreme version for about 10 more. Witch ever one you get you decide.

Any other parts you need to buy perhaps?

 

[Cap J]

Sadly I don't think I'd be able to afford 2GB of RAM as I need to fit in a CPU, RAM, and MB to £200. : (

I guess I could afford the 6600GT Extreme.

I've got £ and $ but no Euro on mine.

My other parts are fine for now. : )

 

[|Overlord|]

Sadly I don't think I'd be able to afford 2GB of RAM as I need to fit in a CPU, RAM, and MB to £200. : (

I guess I could afford the 6600GT Extreme.

I've got £ and $ but no Euro on mine.

My other parts are fine for now. : )

What motherboard do you have in mind to get?.

 

[Cap J]

I have no idea any more. >_< The only DFI nForces on Overclockers are a tad pricey.

 

[|Overlord|]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Socket_939.html these ones right here?
If you can fit it in on your limited budget I'd go with a DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D witch is £84.95.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ABIT_Socket_939.html Abit Mainboards.
Abit KN8 nForce4 goes for £59.95.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/MSI_Socket_939.html Msi boards.
MSI K8N Neo4-F nForce4 goes for £59.95

Iv'e seen good reviews on the DFI & Abit mainboards. How much are the cpu and memory costing you?

 

[Cap J]

Well if I get that 1GB of Corsair then that'll be £50 and maybe the Athlon 64 3200+ for £99. So with the Abit board it should be affordable.....just take me a while to get the money.

 

[|Overlord|]

That's isn't the cas3 corsair value select kit your'e getting is it?.

EDIT: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Gigabyte_Socket_939.html - Gigabyte K8N SLi nForce4 SLi seems good for £59.95. It's also got sli & seems to go well with your budget. However these boards aren't exactly the best overclockers (gigabyte boards can't overclock as well as some other mainboard vendors).

 

[Cap J]

Nope it's cas2.5.

 

[|Overlord|]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ASUS_Socket_939.html - ASUS A8N5X nForce4 £59.95. Asus boards are normally a little mroe pricey then the competing products but are a quality brand. This one doesn't have SLI though. All up, youv'e got some thinking to do on what mainboard your'e going to get. Personally, considering your price range I'd go for a Abit KN8 nForce4 goes for £59.95 or If you do want SLI, get the gigabyte board (but remeber they don't overclock as well as competing products from other vendors).

EDIT:
As for a psu (if you do plan to get one, probably best if your current psu is crap)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/FSP__Sparkle_.html - FSP Sparkle ATX-400PNF 400W ATX2.0 PSU seems alright, £25.95.

This thread makes me sound like a salesman 0_o.

 

[Cap J]

So your recommendation is the Abit board. I'll probably end up getting that then.

Edit:

Thanks a lot for helping me with this. : ) On my own I wouldn't have had half a clue.

 

[Killface]

Im trying to keep his parts in budget range.

Cap J - SLI stands for Scalable link Interface. you have 2 PCIe video cards linked together so they can work in tag team with eachother to get you higher performance.

But I'd just forget that since you and overlord pretty much decided on AGP instead of PCIe, atleast thats what it sounds like.

 

[|Overlord|]

Im trying to keep his parts in budget range.

Cap J - SLI stands for Scalable link Interface. you have 2 PCIe video cards linked together so they can work in tag team with eachother to get you higher performance.

But I'd just forget that since you and overlord pretty much decided on AGP instead of PCIe, atleast thats what it sounds like.

Nup, PCIe :*). Just not a sli board.