Seeking good graphics card....

But I have a problem; My computer only has PCI (not express) plugins...

I'm looking for a 8800gt - people say I can find them with PCI support - but i'm not finding any... I suppose a lower end card will work, but i cant seem to find anything with PCI that isnt a 5500 or below.

Anyone know where I could find something like this?


Thanks

I assume this is some kind of HP or Dell with only an onboard AGP?

The most recent one I know of is this :

http://www.visiontek.com/products/cards/retail/2400PRO_PCI.html

or this

http://www.visiontek.com/products/cards/retail/x1550_PCI.html

or this:

http://www.visiontek.com/products/cards/retail/x1300_256pci.html

Just don't ask me which is better, because I stopped paying attention to ATI years ago. I've posted them in order of highest number first, but that's not always accurate.

doesn't the PCI bus only support a bandwidth of 133MB/s?

PCI-Express' capacity is 8GB/s, and AGP is 2,1GB/s.

anyway, I believe it would be such a bottleneck that it wouldn't be any better than an onboard Intel gfx-chip in the end.

What CPU do you have in that system? RAM? if they aren't fairly new, you most likely will just be throwing money out the window.

Ha ha you've got no chance.

Actually, its a gateway, and it has 1 onboard AGP, and 3 onboard PCI (non-express)

Is there a adapter out there? also I know nothing about ATI cards, do those support shader model 3 or 4?

And the computer isnt too new, as for specs, i'll have to find them. (its like a 2003 ish computer)

Two of them explicitly state the answer to that question in the pages I link to. The first one, which doesn't, is SM 4.0.


I think you misunderstood me. Onboard AGP would mean that the videocard is built into the mainboard, and you could not plug an AGP card into it. Your reply suggests that you actually have an AGP slot, in which case, why buy a PCI card when you have an AGP slot? You most certainly can get an 8800GT in AGP form.

this says its express? or am i missing something..

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8358225&st=radeon+hd+2400+pro&type=product&id=1177112902687

Oi you edited on me, Right now i have a onboard intel graphics chip, kinda sucky, SM 2.0, ect ect... Let me double check and see if i have a AGP slot. (where could i find a AGP 8800?)

Yes sorry, you were too quick for me.

You're not missing anything, that's the wrong model.

With regard to the AGP, I think XFX are the only company selling an AGP 8800GT. I have no idea where you would buy one from, it looks like we're not on the same continent so the places I buy from wouldn't be any use to you.

AHH all is not lost -

I've found a PCI express x16 slot waaaay up in the box.. And i've confirmed by checking the specs on my model number on the gateway website - it says it has:

1 PCI express x16
1 PCI express x1
3 std PCI

The one i suspect to be the PCI express x16 looks as following:

A black slot with a small leaver thingy on the left side.

Does this fit the discription?

Also why cant i find this x1? is it small? because i see a small black slot under the standard PCI's (standard PCI's are white with no leaver)

Probably -- the X1 slots are really tiny...

PCI Express are normally black, yes. AGP are brown and PCI are white. And yeah, the x1 sockets are like an inch long or something. They don't compare to standard slots for size.

Before you celebrate finding a PCI-E slot and rush out and buy a 8800GT, you'll want to check your power supply. You'll need a good quality 400 Watt PSU ( or quite a bit higher if it's not a good brand ) to run a 8800GT. Some manufacturers say higher, but I think that's just because they know that some PSU manufacturers bump up their wattage stats.

:), just got back with a 9600GT, apparently its better then a 8800GT.

Everything is working good so far... installation went without a fault (knocks on wood)

It /can/ be better than the 256MB version of the 8800GT and it's a nice card all around... but the 8800GT is still more powerful.

Here's what Tomshardware.com had to say about it:



It's really too bad that they don't seem to have any passively cooled cards in that tier -- that's the main thing that's holding me back. The X1650XT was the fastest card I could find that didn't need a cooling fan when I put my current PC together. Fast enough to run the programs I want (although at lower settings for the more recent stuff), but completely quiet.... Not willing to give up the silence for some extra FPS.

8800gt 512mb has serious cooling issues with people having to downclock to stop bluescreens (ie me)..

The 8800gt plus q6600 got me nice scores 14500+ in 3dmark06 but for stability ive settled for my sig

thats what confuses me with gfx cards
the lower number card can be better than the higher number new card

i know video ram comes into it but arnt they meant to be better with each release not worse or the same

With Nvdia, teh numbering works as follows:

8800gt means it's an 8 series card and it's the 800 model in that series. For the last 4 series of nvidia card, 600 has been midrange gamer and 800 has been high end gamer, then sometimes they release a 900 model which is top of the line before you have to go to the next series up The letter i.e. GT refer to the speed of that model, normally memeory bandwidth speed. So a 8800 can be faster than a 9600 as it's the top model in the 8 series where as the 9600 is the midrange model in the 9 series. The 9600 probably supports a few more directx10.1 features though.

ta makes more sence now
like the old amstrad nX86 series ... i knew where i stood with those
n=case design
x=cpu version

5286 was worse than a 3386sx cos of the processor (plus the 3 was more of a desktop and the 5 a slimline ;) )
sometimes joe punter just needed to know these things

now all i need to do is pop the hood
find out what slots i have and then wait for pay day (or not as i dont play pc games)

Th nvidia numbering made sense until the new 9xxx series, which are just overclocked 8xxx g92 chips...total rip off.
People are buying 9600's thinking they support dx10.1 when they dont.

What about for a laptop? because there's no way in hell this thing would fit in my laptop... its the size of the keyboard..

Is there a more compressed series of GeForces?

The 9600 is a G96 chip actually. All the others most likely will be G100

so they are not overclocked 8xxx chips but the next step of it.

and DX 10.1 is worthless. The cards don't have the performance to use it efficiently and by 2009 its of no importance anyway as DX10 will be replaced by DX11 then.

This has been bugging me the past week. When a video card states the wattage requirement, does it mean that with your typical computer components as well, or a dedicated 400 watts?