Video Cards

my current vid card is a 5900u it has served me well the past few years...

but sadly its too outdated to play any of the newest games out there.

i know agp is going the way of the dodo, but im not ready to do a full upgrade atm. i was wondering if anyone had some ideas about a upgrade from the 5900u.

i was thinking 7600 or a 7900 agp, i only know about nvidia, so i kinda overlooked ati. but if you know a ati one don't hesitate to say.

i am prob only gonna have about $100-$150 to work with, ya i know not much, but best i can do without waiting another few months.

basically i want a card that will play oblivion and bio shock, has to have SM3.0 and dx9 and be agp. i dont play many games above 1024x768 rez tho

thx for any and all help.

 

I'm in the same boat, with a Nvidia 5900Ultra and looking for a new card. Someone, at another forum, had problems with the GTX7800 so I scratched that off the list. The GFX GeForce 7900G.S. may be a possibility. I will keep my eye on this topic and see if we get any responses. Also, if you do buy one, please post.

 

The AGP 7900 series are VERY expensive.... Maybe look into a 6800GT or 6800Ultra.... the 6800 is a rockin AGP card. For ATI take a look at the x1900 series or x1950.... After using a FX5700 for years, I finally upgraded to a 256mb Radeon X1950GT and it cooks. I haven't had any trouble on any games. Just be sure your power is up to snuff. Minimum 430w with 22a on the 12v rail (if dual rails, over 28a combined). There's always 6800GT AGP cards on EBay for around $100.... if you can find a 7900 in your price range, GET IT!!! For a budget card, take a look at the Radeon X1650 Pro.... it won't blow any doors off, but with 512mb on board, and at about $85 or so, it's a real good deal.

 

my PSU is a ULTRA 500w, but it says only 19a on the 12v....crap... dont think that will be enuff for X1950 or a 7900?

 

Check out Nvidia's site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/buy_now_results.html?id=7800GS

 

I just picked up an XFX 7900GS AGP. I'm running it with 2gigs OCZ RAM, and a 3.0 P4 (sometimes i run it at 3.6 but not for everyday use) I'm also running a 7200.10 Seagate Barracuda. I've got Oblivion and can DL the Bioshock demo to see how it handles it and I'll get back to u guys. I'll run 3dmark also (probably 03 since the newer ones are way too hard on older processors)

 

I have a question... I have the same set up... I can't get my P4 3.0 to go more than 3.45 GHz... I have excellent cooling and my board gets to 145 degrees Farenheit when I overclock it... and I even used a good compound on my cpu to attach the heatsink... can you tell me how you got it to get to 3.6 GHz... I would Really like to know...

 

Well for one im running a water cooling setup. Second of all, i picked up a really nice PSU to handle the extra voltage output. Thirdly, I have some good overclocking RAM to give me some headroom when i have the FSB up that high.

One question I have: do u know what core that p4 is? is it a prescott? oh and do u know the celcius temp of 145F? OC'd mine runs ~40C under load

I'll check my BIOS settings and see what the setup is but IIRC (when i had crucial ballistix instead of OCZ ram) the CPU voltage was set at 1.465, memory set @ 333mhz (which ends up back around stock 400mhz) with 2.5-3-3-6 timings and 2.85V. Unfortunately i cant remember what the FSB was but that should be no problem to figure out (stock is 200 with an x15 multiplier so just add onto 200, multiply it by 15 until u come up with 3600)

 

Ok well i have yet to try those games you mentioned but i just tried Crysis...WOW!!! It runs PERFECTLY on medium settings @1024x768 resolution. I hope i get equal results from the rest of the games. This is all at stock settings mind you, no OCing or memory timing tweaks