* Buying A New Graphic Card.! Need Help *
- Thread starter mojo8850
- Start date
Duracell
1
some confusion: X800 means PCI Express slot, AGP 8x means AGP slot;mojo8850 said:
You usually saying money doesn't matter? Sapphire and Asus are always my favorites, but i'm not an expert:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/products/graphics_overview.php?gpid=122
http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=2&l2=8&l3=0&model=785&modelmenu=1
Greetings from
Duracell
There are X850 models in AGP as well, but it wouldn't be a huge difference.
PCI-E is THEORETICALLY faster than AGP 8x, but the limit of AGP 8x is not reached with current cards.
PCI-E with SLI (Nvidia cards) or CROSSFIRE (ATI cards) support enables two video cards to be used in tandem, allowing two high end cards to be paired to start with, a high end with the option to pair it later, or a single / pair of midrange cards.
I would go one of two ways, if making the step to PCI-E...
1. Nvidia Nforce 4 chipset, for AMD processor - if going mad for power, a SLI capable motherboard, fitting a single high end (7800 series) card to start with, and a dual core AMD X2 processor.
2. Intel, Intel chipset (dual core support), loaded with an Intel 840 CPU - far cheaper dual core than AMD, but not as powerful.
I wouldnt put a (performance) AMD on anything other than an Nforce chipset, and I would never use an Intel on anything that wasn't an Intel chipset - having found older Intel on Intel setups to be robust, stable and well tuned.
Personally, though I now have Intel with ATI graphics, if I ever build again, I'm going back to AMD with Nvidia graphics - and I'd probably go for the ULI chipset motherboard which supports both AGP and PCI-E - well, if I had an AGP card worth keeping at the time.
I would NEVER go "legacy free" unless certain that running old serial and PS/2 kit on a USB dongle would work in any environment I would wish to run it under.
PCI-E is THEORETICALLY faster than AGP 8x, but the limit of AGP 8x is not reached with current cards.
PCI-E with SLI (Nvidia cards) or CROSSFIRE (ATI cards) support enables two video cards to be used in tandem, allowing two high end cards to be paired to start with, a high end with the option to pair it later, or a single / pair of midrange cards.
I would go one of two ways, if making the step to PCI-E...
1. Nvidia Nforce 4 chipset, for AMD processor - if going mad for power, a SLI capable motherboard, fitting a single high end (7800 series) card to start with, and a dual core AMD X2 processor.
2. Intel, Intel chipset (dual core support), loaded with an Intel 840 CPU - far cheaper dual core than AMD, but not as powerful.
I wouldnt put a (performance) AMD on anything other than an Nforce chipset, and I would never use an Intel on anything that wasn't an Intel chipset - having found older Intel on Intel setups to be robust, stable and well tuned.
Personally, though I now have Intel with ATI graphics, if I ever build again, I'm going back to AMD with Nvidia graphics - and I'd probably go for the ULI chipset motherboard which supports both AGP and PCI-E - well, if I had an AGP card worth keeping at the time.
I would NEVER go "legacy free" unless certain that running old serial and PS/2 kit on a USB dongle would work in any environment I would wish to run it under.
SLI, dual graphics cards working in tandem...
Most motherboards have a sideways mounted key card that must be repositioned to change between SLI and non-SLI mode - or worse, a huge set of individual links or dipswitches, though that evil method is not seen very often.
The Premium does the same thing with a BIOS option, not sure if that means you can actually switch between dual card SLI and dual card, multi-monitor - a minot point though , as the key card/paddle board would only neeed to be adjusted once, if installing a dual card SLI setup.
I'm a dedicated midranger myself, so exotics like SLI don't really excite me, as I'd consider the price of one top end graphics card excessive, never mind two - as for adding a second card of the same type later, it would have to compete with whatever the price of a better card was, and my doubts as to just how effective SLI is - as I doubt that two cards will combine with 100% gain.
Most motherboards have a sideways mounted key card that must be repositioned to change between SLI and non-SLI mode - or worse, a huge set of individual links or dipswitches, though that evil method is not seen very often.
The Premium does the same thing with a BIOS option, not sure if that means you can actually switch between dual card SLI and dual card, multi-monitor - a minot point though , as the key card/paddle board would only neeed to be adjusted once, if installing a dual card SLI setup.
I'm a dedicated midranger myself, so exotics like SLI don't really excite me, as I'd consider the price of one top end graphics card excessive, never mind two - as for adding a second card of the same type later, it would have to compete with whatever the price of a better card was, and my doubts as to just how effective SLI is - as I doubt that two cards will combine with 100% gain.