I am Teh n00bzorz (which AGP card?)

M

Mythos

n00b
Joined
Nov 9, 2006
Messages
9
Greetings people,

I am computer illiterate and need some help. I have a Dell XPS and I despise it and the company that crafted it. So far I've had tons of problems and a couple failed hard drives, but that's besides the point.

I need to upgrade it so I can run BF2142 relatively well, and need some recommendations.

The specs are: (don't have the exact in front of me, posting this from my laptop)

Gig of RAM
P4 processor
3.0 Ghz (I believe)
Radeon 9800
80 gigs of space


It's never really performed that well..perhaps not cooled enough as I believe my vid card has overheated a few times.


ANYHOW:


I believe I am only able to install an AGP video card, correct me if I'm wrong. What upgrades do you guys recommend to get some performance out of this big 'ol piece? I'm trying to avoid buying a new rig all together.


Thanks for the help!
 
get a gainward 7800GS + 512mb. its the fastes card in a agp system, running very close to an actual PCI-E 7900GT
 
Mythos said:
Greetings people,

I am computer illiterate and need some help. I have a Dell XPS and I despise it and the company that crafted it. So far I've had tons of problems and a couple failed hard drives, but that's besides the point.

I need to upgrade it so I can run BF2142 relatively well, and need some recommendations.

The specs are: (don't have the exact in front of me, posting this from my laptop)

Gig of RAM
P4 processor
3.0 Ghz (I believe)
Radeon 9800
80 gigs of space


It's never really performed that well..perhaps not cooled enough as I believe my vid card has overheated a few times.


ANYHOW:


I believe I am only able to install an AGP video card, correct me if I'm wrong. What upgrades do you guys recommend to get some performance out of this big 'ol piece? I'm trying to avoid buying a new rig all together.


Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

I would get a X1950 Pro.
The card that jonneymendoza recommended, is very hard to get and the X1950 Pro is about the same in performance, but it's much more available and is probably a bit cheaper too.
 
Hey Mythos if you system is old then you probably shouldnt spend too much money on it(due to agp being a dead technology and it would not be usable in a future system) I would look at these 2.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2484234&Tab=2&NoMapp=0

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2430668&CatId=933

If your system is fairly up to date then maybe you should drop a few more bucks to truly enjoy your system. If thats the case then check these out;

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1831181&CatId=933

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2855869&CatId=933

GL
 
One of my machines is almost identical to yours, and I recently upgraded to an X1950pro, and it runs great. It may be a little much for a system like this, but from my experience with this setup, I can tell you the improvements are HUGE!!
 
For Battlefield 2142, you will want to upgrade your memory as well. While 1 GB is sufficient to play, 2 GB will make it much less frustrating.

Battlefield, in my experience, runs better on ATI hardware. Especially Battlefield 2142, where shader power is preferable to geometry power. A Radeon X1950 PRO will be your best path with an AGP system.
 
I'd wait a few months and grab a NVidia or ATI Directx10 card. Worth the wait!
 
rawd said:
I'd wait a few months and grab a NVidia or ATI Directx10 card. Worth the wait!
Click to expand...

Uh.... dude... he has an AGP system... and I'm not too sure that we're actually going to see an AGP DX10 card sooooo......
 
rawd said:
I'd wait a few months and grab a NVidia or ATI Directx10 card. Worth the wait!
Click to expand...

I'd be surprised to see an R600 or G80 series GPU on an AGP card. I'm not saying it can't or won't happen. I'm just saying I'd be surprised if they did it.
 
oh we will see them, there are rumors of the 8300 going AGP, should be about as fast as a 7600GS, but back on track, the 1950pro AGP or the 7600GT AGP are your best bets, and i 2nd the 2gig ram requirement for BF2142
 
hossdaddy said:
but does his system have 2 available ram slots?
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not. But even if he only has 1 slots, he can still upgrade to 2 GB. It's up to him, obviously, on how much money he wants to spend to play Battlefield 2142.
 
You guys are f'in awesome. Thanks for the help.


I wish I had my rig right in front of me but sadly I'm in another country for a couple more weeks. But yeah, more memory will definitely be a must. As soon as I get home I'll check into the slot availability and what not and bump this thread back up. In the mean time I'll keep my eyes on those vid card suggestions.


Thanks again,

-Myth
 
Allright if/when I upgrade the vid card, I'm probably going to go with the Radeon X1650 Pro.

Now, who makes the best one? I was looking at Sapphire and the above posted HIS. This is yet another matter I'm clueless about...
 
To be honest IMO you need to fully upgrade your system to really play that game. I had a similar setup 2 years ago only an overclocked AMD and 9800 pro when I wanted to play BF2 and it's just not going to cut it. 2GB memory is probably your best bet, but with a slower processor and AGP slot your better off upgrading the whole system....
 
"fastest? I don't think so, a x1950 pro 512 agp will chew the 7800 gs"

Thats not entirely true, it depends on what brand of the 7800 GS you get.
Some 7800 is a good bit better then other 7800's (I am speaking of AGP).
Some brands have more pipes open then others.

As that one guy said, get a Gainward 7800GS, but as also said, its hard to get one here in the US. Used to be easy, but read or heard that Gainward stopped distribution of thier cards in the US, reason its hard to find them here in the US now.

The Gainward 7800GS has 20 pipes, whereas MOST 7800GS cards have 16.


Opt
 
BTW, another note I left out, about DX10, is currently isn't any DX10 cards for the AGP.
Another problem is, even is you did have a DX10 card, you also HAVE to have Vista for you to be able to use DX10. As it stands, MS only put it into Vista, and think MS did that as a way to force more people to buy Vista.

Myself, I'm not upgrading to Vista for a long time.
Vista is a memory system hug for one thing. Benchmarking test shows you lose framerates on games, verses those played on an Win XP, or XP pro version.
I'm speaking of even more then 10+ on some games for frame loss.

I would not suggest to anymore to upgrade to Vista on an AGP system.


BTW, not putting down the Radeon X1950 PRO card, it is a great card to consider, and not just the 7800GS.
I am more a fan of the Nvidia chipset cards tho, but at the same time, being honest, and relistic about how good or better 1 card is from another.

I don't recommend the BFG 7800GS.
My other post of my issues with it, will explain it.
XFX , Gainward (if you can get it), and even the Radeon X1950 PRO are a couple I suggest.

BFG have great products. just the 7800GS (AGP) I am having issues with, but they do have great proformance, and not everyone has the issues I have with it. Suggest you do some internet research to see if you might have issues of the BFG 7800GS (AGP) before buy it for your system.

Opt
 
Hey guys and gals.

Thanks so much for your help thus far, really appreciate it.

Ok, here's an update with the actual specs of my comp:

1 M5269 PROCESSOR, 80546, 3.2, 1M, PENTIUM 4 PRESCOTT DT, 800, D0
1 U2424 CARD (CIRCUIT), PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), DIMENSION, XPS-G2
2 K4230 DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 512, 400M, 64X64, 8K, 184
1 X2603 CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, 128MB, R350, PROFESSIONAL, DIMENSION
(radeon 9800 AGP^^^^)
1 U4001 HARD DRIVE, 160GB, Serial ATA, 8MB, 7.2K, WD-XL80


Allrighty, here's the plan:

I'm going to upgrade the vid card to the X1650 Pro 512 mb:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102073


And I want to upgrade the memory. Now, as far as memory goes, I'm LOST. All I know is it's DDR and 400mhz. So..I was looking at this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211014


I'm pretty broke, can anyone recommend some cheap but quality memory that would be compatible with my system? Let me know what you guys think.


Thanks,

-Myth

Edit: moving to correct forum
 
well for $65 you could buy a 1 gig stick provided you have 1 available memory slot,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161626

As for the video card look at this benchmark from Tom's Hardware,

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html?modelx=33&model1=589&model2=536&chart=197

The 6800 GS OC:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143045

The 6800 smokes that card, it is $30 more but you should enjoy the performance. Also, the card you ave chosen is using ddr2 ram which has pretty much been phased out. DDR3 is the current standard. Look at the comparison with the same card in 256meg with ddr3 ram vs 512 in ddr2,

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html?modelx=33&model1=589&model2=572&chart=197

50 fps vs 38fps. Go with the ddr3 256meg version here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102057

enjoy!
 
wow thanks for the info hoss.. and here I wasn't even paying attention to what type of ddr the vid card had. Yeah the 1650 pro with ddr3 looks good, though I hear tell of it being difficult in regards to drivers.. hm..
 
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