Which card / upgrade box?

[docevi1]

Hi,

I'm in a little bit of a quandry - I want to get a new graphics card but don't know what to get!

At the moment I have a AMD 64 3500 s939, Asus A8V Deluxe with a GF4Ti4400 (AGP) and 1Gb Geil Ram. I upgraded the core components around October 2004 just before PCIe really came into the market (I couldn't afford to replace the g'card as well at the time hence staying AGP)

At the moment I have a ATI x850 pre-ordered from OcUK but from reading the news thread about the 7800GS I'm wondering if it would be wise to swop my order to one of those or cancel the whole thing and wait a while until I can afford to go fully PCIe.

As for the type of gaming I do, well it's not loads. I do like my racing games and tinker on with FPS and the like but I'm not a constant player. The only reason I'm looking to upgrade is that the current gf4Ti440 keeps getting disappearing textures or they go funky colours... I only really run my games at 1024*768, but that is more down to card power than monitor capability (19" Viewsonic P95f)

The other thing to ask is I've seen talk of DX10 cards coming out later this year and AM2. I would have no intention of getting a DX10 card (far to pricey at launch and it would take too long for the capabilities to be used) but what is this AM2 - I've never heard of it before.

edit:: I meant to say that I have a x850 on pre-order at the moment. There has been a bit of confusion about it however as I was told to expect it on Friday (it's not available until next week at the earliest). I'm thinking of cancelling the order in favour of another card...

Thanks

 

[Lanz]

The 7800GS will be a little faster than the x850 propably, but not that much, only real benefit would be sm3.0.

As for DX10, dont worry about that, it'll be about a year away yet before we see many games using it, and it probably wont look much different to dx9.

 

[ACESHIGH]

The 7800GS may be a bit faster than the X850XT but it will also likely cost more.
So if staying AGP, might as well keep what you have ordered.

If you have a socket 939 CPU then you can get a mobo plus graphics card in PCI-E for same cost as AGP graphics card.

If you mean the PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT (AGP) at £199.69 Including VAT then you could get the PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO16 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-055-PC) at £135.07 Including VAT [this is essentially an X800XL] or PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-037-PC) at £152.69 Including VAT. With the money you save you could get a PCI-E mobo also. You wouldnt be out of pocket, you would have the same graphics card & be on PCI-E. A win-win situation as i see it.

 

[ACESHIGH]

BTW - AM2 is the next AMD socket.

However you processor is fast enough to not warrant a change, except a nicer video card.