I do not know too much of how pci express works but I do like my agp mobo. If i end up upgrading my motherboard/pcu setup... would it be well worth it to go with pci express? or will agp do it? Do i even need that fast of a vid card? Mainly just browse play light games and wow sometimes.. what do you guys think? Should i just keep the current tower i have now and not upgrade anything but a new agp card and ram and vista? i have a xp 64 bit 3000 with 80 gig 10000 rpm ata100 hd.. geforce 6700 i believe... i need to figure out my specs again im at work and my tower is at home so i will figure it out ..
well, basically PCIx is a lot faster at transferring data & unless you want to play the latest games, you'll be fine with AGP[ot]i'm using an old Radeon 7k with 64Mb RAM[/ot]theres no point spending money upgrading your system for the sake of it[ot]i'm currenly using an intel 3Ghz Cedar Mill & 1Gb DDR2 RAM[/ot]
If you upgrade to a new motherboard, you're almost certainly going to have to go with a PCIe-based board. PCIe is here to replace AGP, PCI, and PCI-X slots. AGP, PCI, and PCI-X are all parallel bus architectures, which, by design share bandwith among devices plugged into or wired to the bus. The problem facing these is devices that consume large amounts of band with, like video cards, storage controllers, and network adapters. PCIe is a serial technology, meaning that there is no bandwidth sharing. Instead of a bus, PCIe incorporates a series of lanes. Each lane runs at 250MB/s in each direction, or 500MB/s total. PCIe slots are denoted by the number of lanes going to them. The most common slots are x1, x4, and x16. Also, PCIe lanes can be configured to support a varying amount of lanes to the slot. Another advantage is that more power can be transferred by PCIe slots than the last generation. Obviously, the immediate application is in the video cards.
okay and is there a certain mobo/cpu setup that has the best bang for the buck for gaming that you could recommend?
hi, sorry to hijack this thread but my question did seem relevent to the title of the post... my question is, is a 7600gt 256mb PCI-E going to be faster or slower than x1950pro 512mb AGP card due to the PCI-E/AGP differences?
A few notes on upgrades: With very, very few exceptions, motherboards you purchase now require DDR2, which is incompatible with DDR in voltage, signaling and module pin-count (184-pin DDR, 240-pin DDR2). While not absolutely required, depending on the power supply you have now, it may be a worthwhile investment to purchase a new unit, with more modern specs. Something from FSP or Ultra should afford you a nice 500-600W unit for a fairly reasonable price. 600W Ultra X2 units have popped up for free after rebate, so keep an eye out for that. Right now, Vista is not really encouraged. Gaming performance is slower than with Windows XP SP2, although with patches and driver updates, this should hopefully change. If you're concerned with DX10, don't expect games to require it for awhile. It's a new OS, and driver performance still leaves much to be desired. Well, given that Core 2 Duo is the best bang for the money, looking at an LGA775 motherboard for starters is ideal. Unless you're looking to run a pair of video cards in SLI or Crossfire, a motherboard sporting the P965 chipset is a good starting point. Something like the MSI P965 Neo-F is around $80-90 on line. I picked one up recently, and it's a nice board. You may also consider an ECS P965 one, as they've shaped up over the years.
