Compitable graphics Card...help!?

Question

I am using a ASUS A8V Deluxe MOB with 1GB DDR, 2x Athlon 3800+ CPU and a ATI X850 XT graphics card...

...i want to upgrade my card does anyone know a compatible card?...

...OR do you think it would be easier to get a new machine?

Thanks! :O)

Answer 1

rich my man,why would you want to ditch the ATI X850 XT graphics card...its a great agp card,infact apart from the ati radeon x1950pro its one of the best
this is a great agp card and with a core clock speed of 520mhz and a memory clock speed of 540 MHz (1080 DDR) these are respectable speeds for any card
other specs for the x850 xt are pixel and shader model 3.0,open gl compliance 2.0,but the main spec that makes this card stand out is the memory bandwidth of 34.56 GB/sec
this is a respectable bandwidth for any card,especially a agp card,many users dont understnad the importance of the memory bandwidth,this is the the speed at which the card can access memory.Memory bandwidth is equal to the size of the memory bus multiplied by the speed at which the memory is clocked.The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be able to handle large textures and anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.
however the main drawback of this card is its 130mn(nanometer) manufacturing process,this makes it difficult for this card to reach higher clock speeds
if i were to upgrade from a card like the ati x850xt my choice would be the Nvidia geforce 7950GT AGP 8x(http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=584932),this is a pretty heavy peice of hardware and the top of the nvidia agp range
its clock speed of 550mhz and memory speed of 1300mhz gddr3 make it a excellent choice for gamers,and its memory bandwidth of 44.8 GB/sec is a massive improvment on the x850xt and a repectable amount in its own right
other specs include 24 pixel rendering pipelines and 16 raster operators,these two specs may be a bit confusing to the average guy but basically pixel pipelines are what produce all the cool effects in modern video games, like lens flares, light blooms, and heat distortions. Since these programs have to run for every single pixel on the screen, it stands to reason that more of them means faster rendering.and raster operators are the last stage of the graphics pipeline which writes the textured/shaded pixels to the frame buffer.
finally the geforce 7950gt is direct x 9 and open gl2.0 compliant making it ideal for gamers
this is a mighty expensive agp card but worth every penny,for a budget graphics card but still plenty of power the nVidia GeForce 7600GT 512MB AGP from http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/AGP/nVIDIA+GeForce+7+Series/nVidia+GeForce+7600GT+512MB+AGP?productId=28435 is a great card,with a core clock speed of 562mhz and a 1400mhz memory speed,this is a bargain at just £64.57 inc. VAT
this has a respectable bandwidth(memory)of 22.8gb/sec and with 12 pixel pipelines i think this is a great card for its low price tag
i hope this has helped,any problems let me know
good luck rich !

Answer 2

You have a powerful mainstream AGP card supporting an outdated Shader model. An upgrade on the AGP format would just upgrade you to Shader 3.0 but not really bring an awesome performance gain. Real performance boost could only come from current high-end cards that are on the PCIe format. Athlon x2 3800+ would also bottleneck the high end cards. You may have to overclock it to 2.4ghz or higher level to get the full benefits of powerful graphics card.

Answer 3

that board uses agp 8x, but depending on your wants I would get a new motherboard along with the video card because agp is a dying technology no matter what people clinging on to their cards crying say... sorry people they don't have much longer. It is hard to find a agp card and the prices on them suck. a pci express graphics card will give you more for less but of course to get that you would need a new motherboard as well. It would really be better if you could say what you want to do with it. I'm assuming games, but which ones? That would really say whether to get a new machine

Answer 4

I have basically the same set up as u, just with a x800gto card and a bit more ram. AGP cards are dead. If you want to upgrade, save your money and get a new system, it will be way more worth it. Especially if you want to get Vista, which you will in time with new games, you need to start fresh with a new system. Plus the new dual and quad core CPUs are going to get cheaper and will be worth the wait in my opinion.

Answer 5

Flash your GPU's bios to the X850XT Platinum. Little extra boost.

But there is nothing better than the X850 series for agp.