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So yeah, I'm looking for a new video card. It's annoying.

A. There's PCI, PCI Express, and AGP ports for video cards (apparently). I ran a search on my cpu and I'm about 98% sure I have a PCI port.

Question 1: Are PCI-Express cards compatible with my PCI port?

If the answer to that is yes, then
"Horray!"

...if not...

B. Do 512MB video cards exist for PCI ports? If not, is it possible to outfit my PC with an Express port?

I need an upgrade to run Oblivion (I have a 128) and was hoping to upgrade to a 512 so that I'd be well beyond what I need and set for a while. A 256MB will do, but I really loathe the idea of a mediocre upgrade like that.

...

If no one can help, that's cool. But thanks for any input/info that anyone might share. The Best Buy guys figured out I'm not buying a card from them, and I don't want to pester them if I don't have to (the drive is kinda out of my way), and they also sometimes have annoyingly vague answers for me. So I figured I'd try here first.

-DM

Nope. You can have both PCI and PCI E slots on your motherboard, but a PCI E card will only work in the PCI E slot. Not sure if you can get 512mb PCI cards, but nowadays its pretty standard for PCI E cards to have the bigger oomph power. Also, dont buy a card just because its 512mb, theres plenty of good 256mb cards that can outperform a 512mb. The speed of the card is probably more important than its memory, cause then you can push out polygons faster and have less lag/higher framerates.

Just so we can see what kind of direction you're heading in, what cards are you looking at/what have you got now?

Oh yeah and lastly, if your motherboard doesnt have a PCI E port, its probably worth upgrading Probably the highest I would pay for a good motherboard is around $200AU, and they're really good gaming mobos, so if that fits into your budget, definitely try and work with it. But, the downside is, your CPU might not match the new mobo, so you'd have to get a new one Very confusing, but once you work out what you want/how much you're willing to spend, run down to a PC store and see what they can do. Im not sure what Best Buys is like...are they a retail store? Its better to duck down to a local PC warehouse supplier, they'll tell you everything you want to know and recommend better options.

Originally posted by Mišt
Nope. You can have both PCI and PCI E slots on your motherboard, but a PCI E card will only work in the PCI E slot. Not sure if you can get 512mb PCI cards, but nowadays its pretty standard for PCI E cards to have the bigger oomph power. Also, dont buy a card just because its 512mb, theres plenty of good 256mb cards that can outperform a 512mb. The speed of the card is probably more important than its memory, cause then you can push out polygons faster and have less lag/higher framerates.

Just so we can see what kind of direction you're heading in, what cards are you looking at/what have you got now?

Oh yeah and lastly, if your motherboard doesnt have a PCI E port, its probably worth upgrading Probably the highest I would pay for a good motherboard is around $200AU, and they're really good gaming mobos, so if that fits into your budget, definitely try and work with it. But, the downside is, your CPU might not match the new mobo, so you'd have to get a new one Very confusing, but once you work out what you want/how much you're willing to spend, run down to a PC store and see what they can do. Im not sure what Best Buys is like...are they a retail store? Its better to duck down to a local PC warehouse supplier, they'll tell you everything you want to know and recommend better options.

..woof...

First off, thanks a bunch. I appreciate the info.

Between the video card purchase and my low budget, upgrading to a PCI-E slot probably isn't in the cards (pun intended) for me. And none of my searches have turned up a 512 PCI card, so it looks like I'll be going the 256 route.

But I'll look for the higher processing speeds when finding a 256 card, so thanks for that advice. I don't have any picked out right now, since I've been looking at 512's, but hopefully I will soon.

My current is an Nvidia Geforce 5300 128MB. I don't know the exact specs because it came with my system.

And yeah, Best Buy is a big-business chain store deal for tech-related stuff. We're woefully bereft of a good small-time PC store in my area, but hopefully I got all the info I need here.

...back to Ebay then, I guess....

-DM

P.S. In a year or two, I'll likely have my own place and enough cash to buy my own (extremely high-end) computer, since I game a lot. So maybe the 256 is better, since my family doesn't game, so the 512 would be more expensive and would probably just be overkill....and I wouldn't get too much use from it anyway before I ended up with a new one. ...gotta find the silver lining, I guess.

Hate to say this dude, but I don't think you'll be able to run oblivion well with any PCI card.

Originally posted by BackFire
Hate to say this dude, but I don't think you'll be able to run oblivion well with any PCI card.

*considers exploding*

...I think I'm obligated to disbelieve this in order to keep hope alive. Noted though...and thanks for being honest.

My cpu itself is more than fast enough for the game. And with a high-end 256, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've gotten it to run on my 128, and when it's darker on screen it's actually smooth-running. It's just when it gets lighter that it slows down considerably. So I'm at least relatively confident that I can get something out of it.

I have a 512 and it runs shit, so I don't think speed has much to do with it

don't think a lot of PCI 256 exists, heck I have trouble finding an 512 AGP I know upgrading to PCI-E would prolly help me a lot but I don't have the money to buy a new mobo, graphics card and processor so..

Originally posted by DigiMark007
*considers exploding*

...I think I'm obligated to disbelieve this in order to keep hope alive. Noted though...and thanks for being honest.

My cpu itself is more than fast enough for the game. And with a high-end 256, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've gotten it to run on my 128, and when it's darker on screen it's actually smooth-running. It's just when it gets lighter that it slows down considerably. So I'm at least relatively confident that I can get something out of it.

Its not just a video card that comes into play here and speed isnt always the answer. First off how old is your PC?

Originally posted by El_NINO
Its not just a video card that comes into play here and speed isnt always the answer. First off how old is your PC?

About a year. It's 3GHz, 512 MB RAM, plenty of hard drive space, etc.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
About a year. It's 3GHz, 512 MB RAM, plenty of hard drive space, etc.

Your forgetting the most important thing.. what Motherboard do you have? If you dont know what MOBO you have what good is it to buy a Video Card that wont connect to your MOBO.

Originally posted by El_NINO
Your forgetting the most important thing.. what Motherboard do you have? If you dont know what MOBO you have what good is it to buy a Video Card that wont connect to your MOBO.

Erm, not sure. How would I go about finding out?

I honestly thought the PCI/PCI-E/AGP thing determined what would connect (I have PCI).

I'd up your ram to atleast 1Ghz man

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Erm, not sure. How would I go about finding out?

I honestly thought the PCI/PCI-E/AGP thing determined what would connect (I have PCI).

The most easiest way is to download this program called EVEREST which will tell you everything about your PC. Then all you have to do is either tell us or post a pic.

http://www.simtel.net/product.php%5Bid%5D95756%5BSiteID%5Dsimtel.net

Originally posted by Fire
I'd up your ram to atleast 1Ghz man

When talking about RAM, it would be a Gig, not Ghz.

Thanks for the link.

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 3000 MHz (15 x 200)
Motherboard Name Dell Dimension 4600i
Motherboard Chipset Intel Springdale-G i865G
System Memory
BIOS Type Phoenix (05/17/04)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (128 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Monitor Dell E172FP (J180646JAAEZ)

BIOS Properties:
Vendor Dell Computer Corporation
Version A10
Release Date 05/17/2004
Size 512 KB
Boot Devices Floppy Disk, Hard Disk, CD-ROM, LS-120
Capabilities Flash BIOS, Shadow BIOS, Selectable Boot, EDD, BBS
Supported Standards DMI, APM, ACPI, ESCD, PnP
Expansion Capabilities PCI, AGP, USB

...

http://www.shentech.com/asp4inspso47.html

Well I just checked your motherboard online and your best choice for a video card would be an AGP card. PCI cards are no longer in use otherthan whats already out there and they are not as good as an AGP or PCI-E card. Every motherboard comes with PCI slots for other pieces of hardware such as a sound card or tv tuner.

I recommend an AGP 8X video card

yea, but you'd best hurry if you want a decent AGP card cause AGP is in its last days

Originally posted by El_NINO
http://www.shentech.com/asp4inspso47.html

Well I just checked your motherboard online and your best choice for a video card would be an AGP card. PCI cards are no longer in use otherthan whats already out there and they are not as good as an AGP or PCI-E card. Every motherboard comes with PCI slots for other pieces of hardware such as a sound card or tv tuner.

I recommend an AGP 8X video card

Wait. I can use AGP cards?!

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Wait. I can use AGP cards?!

"Expansion Capabilities PCI, AGP, USB"

Apparently..

Oh. Wow.

Well then, that opens things up, doesn't it. AGP's can be a bit more powerful than PCI's.

But I don't haev to buy anythign new, right? It's just able to take that kind of card.

*begins singing Zombie Nation and dancing*

yea, just buy an AGP card and plug it in

Hmm, apparently I have 3 PCI Express.. I don't think my mobo is SLI ready though

SLI?

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Oh. Wow.

Well then, that opens things up, doesn't it. AGP's can be a bit more powerful than PCI's.

But I don't haev to buy anythign new, right? It's just able to take that kind of card.

*begins singing Zombie Nation and dancing*

There are plenty of good and amazaing AGP cards out there right now so have fun not to mention they are cheap and reliable, I have an ATI RADEON 9600 SE

Originally posted by El_NINO
There are plenty of good and amazaing AGP cards out there right now so have fun not to mention they are cheap and reliable, I have an ATI RADEON 9600 SE

Thank you El Nino...for all of your help with this stuff.

Everyone else who has helped too, I appreciate it greatly.

The knowledge that I still have to buy and install this thing is a bit daunting, but this is the first good news I've gotten in a while.

Good, you have an AGP slot. That will help you drastically.

the 9600 SE was a great card

Originally posted by Fire
SLI?

http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_learn.html

Basically a way of putting two graphics cards in parallel for dual performance.

k never heard of it, sounds neat, but I work with AGP and only have one slot so not much use for it

True. I know it's PCI-E only, and I think it needs a specific motherboard, so it's probably not much use to me either

hehe I count myself lucky my most high-end fav game is AoE3 and once I get my new X1600 Pro 512mb that should work good enough.

Yeah, dual cards are the sh*t. Once I finally get my own rig in a couple years, that's the route I'm going.

*goes to hunt on Ebay and other sites*

I'll use that 9600 SE as a benchmark to see what else I can find. I can almost smell the forests of Tamriel.... droolio

When you find a card, search on google to see what kind of 3d mark score it can get, my old one got a score of 5000 and Oblivion lagged, so try to get one that can score at least 5000, preferrably higher.

Eg. just search "9600 SE 3d mark 03" and try to find a review with a score.

Originally posted by Mišt
When you find a card, search on google to see what kind of 3d mark score it can get, my old one got a score of 5000 and Oblivion lagged, so try to get one that can score at least 5000, preferrably higher.

Eg. just search "9600 SE 3d mark 03" and try to find a review with a score.

...so many useful tips...gotta love the KMC support system.

Thanks, I will.

I just did a quick search and found this:

"Thats nice, I have a P4 2.4 with a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 and I score 13,500.

I have no idea why my result is so low, its driving me crazy. I got a 5700 in 3D Mark 03."

So...a little less PC specs than what you have, but it scores 5700 in 3d mark 03, so you could probably bump it up to about 6000 I would think..

Im trying to find the thread on the elderscrolls forum, they have an entire page filled with graphics cards, and they arrange them into rank of performance and whether its AGP or PCI E, Ill post the link in a sec when I find it.

I cant find the elderscrolls forum thread, but heres a post I found:

"As already suggested, the video cards that have "600" performance numbers in their names are generally going to be the ones recommended for the Occasional Game Playing system. There are some cards with that number that are either borderline "Low Quality" and not really fast enough for this game, or quite frankly are mislabelled.

The older Vanilla Radeon 9600, and the Geforce Vanilla 6600 are both too slow for decent playability in Oblivion. Any FX, LE, SE, or (nVidia) XT prefix/ suffix added to a video card name denotes a seriously downgraded video processor."

So it looks like a 9600 might not be too good for gameplay after all doh

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Radeon-9800-XT-256-MB-8X-AGP-New- OEM_W0QQitemZ190010757505QQihZ009QQcategoryZ40158Q
QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'm sure it'll be bid on, but there's others (same model) that are up for bid as well. I found a quick list that seemed a bit dated, but listed this as an excellent card.

Another one....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Radeon-X700-Pro-256MB-GDDR3-AGP-video- card_W0QQitemZ140010024752QQihZ004QQcategoryZ40158
QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Combined with this: http://www.bit-tech.net/review/357/6 ...which has its 3dmark03 clsoe to 8000. = droolio

Not sure yet though, but I haev some time with both. I'll also be checking out the elder scrolls site to see if I can find what Mist is talking about.



{edit}

Found it....

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=490898

...the list in the thread starts at the worst. As you scroll down, the cards get better.

My current card falls under "low end" and the two I posted links to up there would be "mid-range" so it's an improvement. I'm going to see if I can find any of those others (better ones) for relatively cheap.

9800 seems pretty good for playing, not sure about X700 though, never seen any of the X series in action before.

You could probably pick up one of the high end cards pretty cheap, they dont really start getting expensive until you hit the Geforce 7800 mark.

Bottom line, if you can throw in a few extra bucks to get a higher end card, do it. Its not worth buying a mid range one now if you've got a bit extra to spend, cause you'll have to upgrade again later on

Meh, I found a few in the "high end" category (x800 for example) that are only about 150 (new) on Ebay...I set an unofficial spending limit at about 130 for myself, so I'm going to try and find one of them at a bargain somewhere.

But I have options at this point, so I'm not overly worried.

X800 is a very good card, if you take the right variation.

I bought an X1600 Pro cause I couldn't find an X800 in any store

On that list I found earlier about which cards are best for Oblivion, the x800 seems about the best I'll be able to do. Anything higher and it requires a minimum 350-watt power supply or its much too expensive (or it's not AGP). So even if I got a relative deal on one of them, I'd be shelling out probably another $50 for a decent power supply.

But the x800 seems like it'll do the job, and there's enough of them on Ebay that I should be able to win at least 1 of them for a decent price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-RADEON-X800-PRO-AGP-VIDEO- CARD_W0QQitemZ290010479114QQihZ019QQcategoryZ40158
QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

*crosses fingers* I have it for 88 (including shipping right now) and my max bid goes a bit higher if needed....4 days, though, so I'm not terribly hopeful. It looks like I'll be paying circa-160 if this falls through.

Hope you get it.

I got one question for somebody to answer, if they would like of course.

My current card is wrecked. It overheats to about 80C, and because of that, its corrupted from the heat.

I'm going to upgrade sooner or later, and I know there is no point of upgrading to another AGP slot, so my question is.... when I buy an PCI Express card and motherboard, do I actually have to replace everything in the computer so its compatible, or just a few things or none at all?

Thanks.

Originally posted by Smasandian
Hope you get it.

I got one question for somebody to answer, if they would like of course.

My current card is wrecked. It overheats to about 80C, and because of that, its corrupted from the heat.

I'm going to upgrade sooner or later, and I know there is no point of upgrading to another AGP slot, so my question is.... when I buy an PCI Express card and motherboard, do I actually have to replace everything in the computer so its compatible, or just a few things or none at all?

Thanks.

if you plan on upgrading to a PCI-Express MOBO then you will need to also buy a new CPU and maybe a new Power Supply because the voltage may not be enough from your old one to support a PCI-E Video Card and Motherboard.

I hope that answers your question.

And that's it?
Dont need to change harddrives, or memory or nothing like that?

How old is your mobo? Lets say....really old.

eg:
RAM = SDRAM
Harddrive = IDE
CPU = P3 or lower
GPU = AGP
PSU = Likely 300w or lower..


Then....yes, you need pretty much everything if you change over to a PCI-E mobo.

If your ram is DDR, you'll be ok with that. If your hdd is SATA, you'll be ok. Whatever CPU you have will depend on what mobo supports it...if its old, you'll probably need a new one to fit.

Yay for computers being an ass to figure out and costing shitloads!w00t

You dont really need to have an SATA hard drive, you can still use a your current IDE hard drive. Its up to you if you want a new one that can transfer data faster or simple upgrade to more hard drive space.

The x800's mine, for about $130 (with shipping and such).

...a bit more than I was hoping, but I'll definitely be able to run Oblivion, and I'd pay circa 200 in a retail shop for a similar card.



Thanks for the help guys, and it seems this thread has gone beyond simply my own problems, so that's good too.

SATA is nice, but I don't think it's worth the extra money

Oops, I didnt notice SATA were the 10k rpm ones, I was talking about SATA II then, whatever the normal speed ones are.

Slightly off topic, but do you guys know much about fan speeds? I think my 120mm case side fan is running at 2000 rpm and pushes 20cfm air I think, but Im looking at buying another a 140mm fan that does 1000rpm but pushes 54cfm air, twice the normal amount. So anyway, just wondering if I should push up the speed a bit, or if 1000 was ok?

I don't know much about fan speeds but my fan runs at about 3000 rpm

Utter success.

The x800 works like a dream.

ofc it's a great card, which chipset did you buy? the Pro or the TX?

Originally posted by Fire
ofc it's a great card, which chipset did you buy? the Pro or the TX?

Pro. And for all the talk I hear about ATI's not being good, it runs quiet, smooth, and fast, so I have no problem with it.

There was some problem because my actual cpu case was defective...the case wouldn't open like it was supposed to. It was so messed up with the latches that when I finally got it off, I was afraid to put it back on again. I'll be calling Dell about a possible replacement part, and right now I just don't have a siding.

But the upside is, Oblivion runs great on pretty much the highest graphics settings. And I'm itching to try out some slightly older games (Rome: Total War, Battlefield 2, etc.) on the highest graphics settings as well.

I'm jealous you bastard.

Ah well, I'm getting my computer upgraded next year in January, hopefully to get an direct 10 card...so I can play Crysis on super high settings (if it comes outs)

I've been using Ati forever, never had a problem (excep I don't like the damn catalyst center crappy thingy)

my 9600Pro took 4 years or something to become obsolete (I don't play that many games demanding high graphics)

and my X1600 Pro is doing a fine job so far.