help me tell a m8 what gfx card to get

[kidkhaos]

i gave this friend my old stuff a while ago the main things were

9800xt 256
3.2 p4
1024 pc3200 ram
maxtor 7500rmp hd

now it played cs and half life 2 fine but now he wants to play oblivion as good as possible with having to upgrade to pci-e. What he wants to know is if he gets the best AGP gfx card possible, is his current setup will it be good enough to run oblivion quite high. I said yes but to be honest i dont want him to buy it then find out it wont work. So i ask people here, just to be sure
(and the gfx he'll probly get is Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GS+ SILENT 512MB GDDR3)


,thxs

 

[semi-pro waster]

I'd be thinking for a while before spending the better part of £300 on the fastest AGP card ever likely to be made. It should make it playable, how high the framerates are and what sort of eye-candy isn't something I am altogether sure about.

Has he considered buying a socket 478(I'm assuming that is what it is) motherboard with PCI-E and then getting a 7900gt or X1800XT and another gb of Ram as that will work out to be about the same price but gives him a PCI-E graphics card from which to build a new system in the future plus more Ram for right now.

 

[matt1]

Another consideration may be would that CPU be holding back a bleeding edge graphics card? I couldn't say, but it may. I had an issue a few years back where I had a P4 2.53GHz with a GF4Ti4800, and upgrading to a GF6600GT made such a minor improvement - so I decided to make a new rig just because the benefits were there. It may be difficult but if you could find a top graphics card to test in his machine first, see if there are improvements and then make a decision. A cheap A64 system would play games better than his current setup imo.

 

[Lanz]

Nvidia cards dont perform too good in Oblivion, a £170 X1800XT PCIe would be quicker than a £300 7800GS+ AGP. So if that's his main game, then buying the 7800 might be a little dissapointing (although it works great in all other games)

Many latest games are GPU limited, so the P4 3.2ghz will still be fine. If you can find a PCI-e motherboard for the P4 (and his PSU is good enough) then that is the way to go. (or just bite the bullet and get a new PC)

 

[kidkhaos]

cheers for all your help, i told him to go pci. I found out his willing to part with £500, but he doesnt like chainging pc components himself, so i probably do that for him.


,thxs

 

[LoadsaMoney]

For £500 id go for an x1900 XT/X and a new motherboard/Ram.