RavenMind

I'm thinking about upgrading my video card. I use it almost exclusively for gaming and currently have an nVidia GeForce2 MX 32Mb in a 4x AGP slot. Upon looking at some of the newer cards on newegg it looks like most of them are for 8x slots. If they are designated 8x AGP cards will they work in my system? Thanks all!

RM

elf

Yes they will. All 8x cards are backwards compatible with 4x slots.

waffleweed

8x AGP cards are backward compatible with 4x AGP cards like the last post said and a good gaming card for the bang of the buck is the 6600GT. the only bottleneck is your system which is listed in the bottom of your post.

Sarkast

You didnt list detailed specs but because the "age" of your computer and the numbers you provided i would also like to add you defenitely have to upgrade your power supply if you intend to buy a card in the 6600 series or higher. You should look for a 450W+ BRAND NAME PSU (like enermax, antec etc).

RavenMind

Thanks! I was worried about blowing up my motherboard or something! (Already happened once due to an accident with a mouse cable...)

Thank you for the suggestion!! My system has done pretty much everything I've ever asked of it, and upgrading anything but the graphics card will require either starting from scratch or buying a whole new computer which I don't have the money for.

Sorry, I thought I had everything listed properly. Yeah it's old (in computer terms I suppose) but a good machine. :
I'm thinking the nVidia 6600 is a bit too pricey, not finding anything under $150. As far as power supplies go (I assume that's what PSU stands for..) I don't know a whole lot. I was thinking about this:

Rosewill nVIDIA GeForce FX5200 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "R5200-128D4" -RETAIL

$49.99

- Specifications -

Chipset/Core Speed: nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200/250MHz
Memory/Effective Speed: 128MB DDR/400MHz 128-bit Hynix RAM
BUS: AGP 8x/4x
Ports: VGA Out(15 Pin D-Sub) + TV-Out (S-Video) + DVI
Support 3D API: DirectX 9, OpenGL 1.4
Max Resolution@32bit Color: 2048X1536
Cable/Accessories: S-Video Cable, Driver CD
Retail Box (See pics for details)



What do you think of this, and would I need a better power supply?

Thanks again!

RM

UncleMacro

You should probably avoid that video board. Contrary to what newegg is claiming, that video board looks to have 64 bit memory rather than 128 bit. It could be that they have the wrong picture, but the video board they are showing looks very much like a 64 bit board. It's not at all uncommon for their memory widths to be misidentified. You definitely do not want a video board with 64 bit memory because they are very slow.

A much better card is this Radeon 9550 at $64. It definitely has 128 bit memory but it's also vastly superior to FX 5200's when it comes to any kind of DirectX 9 stuff (pixel and vertex shaders). If you're looking for extremely low cost video boards which still are quite capable, the 128 bit versions of the 9550's are the best things out there. A board like this will probably work fine with your existing power supply because it doesn't use much power. They run cool enough that they don't even have fans.

If you're willing to splurge a bit you could get a Radeon 9600 Pro for $94. They're about 50% faster than the Radeon 9550 and will probably still work fine with your existing power supply. I doubt there's much point in spending any more given that you have a 1GHz Pentium III and that's going to be the bottleneck in just about every game you run if you go much beyond a 9600 Pro.

RavenMind

Uncle Macro,

Thank you for the advice! I think I'll give that 9550 a try! Can't wait to see how Morrowind runs on it!

Thanks again to all of you for your advice & input!