Confused, need help... Please...

R

Resonance456

Geek Trainee
Hi all, I am so glad I found Hardware Forums lol - this site will hopefully save me lol...

Ok, basically i have 2 questions which I need answering:

1) I am looking to upgrade my graphics card from a 6 series to 7 series Nvidia, however, I am not quite sure which 7 series model to go for, could someone please advise me with reasons of which to get and why??? Thanks very much

2) At the moment I have a built in onboard sound card, 'AC '97 vynil'... any ways, I wanted to upgrade to a new sound card but I would like to know if getting a new sound card will actually improve performance of my games and possibly improve graphical performance

Any ways, thanks in advance for any help recieved, this will be mich appreciated :D
 
1: depends on what your budget is and what you want out of a graphics card. Rule of thumb is buy what you can afford and you will be happy and not broke. What cards and brands have you looked at?

2: no. You will get better sound quality with no degredation in performance but it will not speed anything up. Onboard sound and pci sound both give you a sound sub-processor, pci sound cards are just of better quality.
 
1) I've looked at most gfx cards and my budget it around £250 - I want a gfx that gives me good graphics and will allow me to run games in high settings et et, u know the usual without comprimising anything.

2) Which sound card is better, PCI (PI-E if any) or agp???
 
Resonance456 said:
1) I've looked at most gfx cards and my budget it around £250 - I want a gfx that gives me good graphics and will allow me to run games in high settings et et, u know the usual without comprimising anything.

2) Which sound card is better, PCI (PI-E if any) or agp???
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1) First of all, we need to know what type of GPU you need? either AGP or PCI-e. On Overclockers.co.uk there are a few nVidia GeForce 7900GT's (PCI-e) that come just right under your budget.

2) Soundcard's are only PCI or Onboard.
 
1) lol sorry my bad... I heard PCI-E is better than AGP, so I am looking for a PCI-E 7 series graphics card, I just dont know which??

2) ok kl, thnx.
 
1. Better off getting the 7900GT PCI-E or 7800GTX AGP
2. X-FI Fatal1ty. people will actually hate me for this. But it's XRAM can help while gaming because the RAM in the sound card takes the all the sound and processes it in the XFI's RAM instead of the GFX card.
 
The Fatal1ty's X-RAM is shown to provide virtually no improvement in gaming. Why pay for something that won't net you a performance gain or bette audio quality? Furthermore, Fatal1ty-branded crap have tended not to be branded on the top-end stuff. The X-Fi Fatal1ty is not the top-end model X-Fi card.

PCIe (PCI Express) is better than AGP as it can provide more power through the slot and provides a higher amount of bandwith. Also, it's serial nature eliminates devices having to share the bandwith amongst themselves.

However, these features are primarily made use of with video cards, so that's why they're most prevalent.

The GeForce 7 series will do you right.
However, what slot do you have to upgrade it with? AGP or PCIe? PCI isn't an option.

Also, this list might help you sort out what slots you have or do not have. PCI and PCIe slots are generally white, while AGP is typically brown. However, some motherboards come with different colors. AGP and PCI slots are about the same length. If they're short brown slots those are something different.
 
errmmm. lets seee, i think i have 2 more pci e slots available on my motherboard... my agp is being used by a gfx card (geforce 6600 256mb).

it seems i should go for a gfx card somewhere in the top half of the 7 series, so i am going to start looking for some, but i read somewhere else on this forum about direct x 10 gfx cards comming in september?? should i wait for these cards or not??

also, just to clarify, buying a new soundcard will NOT enhance any aspects of gaming???

thnx for the help guys, so far you've all been really helpful :D
 
yep. a soundcard will not help in gaming. i learned not to believe all they hype:O
i suggest you get the 7800GTX for your system.
 
Resonance456 said:
also, just to clarify, buying a new soundcard will NOT enhance any aspects of gaming???
Click to expand...

More clarification: Yes a soundcard will not enhance PERFORMANCE in gaming.

A dedicated sound card will absolutely enhance the EXPERIENCE of gaming. To me its like the difference between playing console games and running your sound through the TV speakers instead of a hifi system. If you care about the QUALITY of the sound then a good dedicated card will make a great difference. Do not, however, expect it to enhance overall system performance.

Of course this mileage will vary depending on what the quality of your speaker system is. This will blow you away if you run it through a good home stereo/theatre sound system in full surround.

But then this is just my opinion as an audiophile.
 
A soundcard will improve games performance but only fractionally, perhaps 1-2 fps. It takes a small load off the CPU but nothing you will notice. I went from onboard sound on my old Asus A7N8X to a sounblaster 5.1 Live and got about 1% performance gain. Dont bother unless you need better sound quality.
 
More clarification: Yes a soundcard will not enhance PERFORMANCE in gaming.

A dedicated sound card will absolutecly enhance the EXPERIENCE of gaming. To me its like the difference between playing console games and running your sound through the TV speakers instead of a hifi system. If you care about the QUALITY of the sound then a good dedicated card will make a great difference. Do not, however, expect it to enhance overall system performance.

Of course this mileage will vary depending on what the quality of your speaker system is. This will blow you away if you run it through a good home stereo/theatre sound system in full surround.

But then this is just my opinion as an audiophile.
Click to expand...

A soundcard will improve games performance but only fractionally, perhaps 1-2 fps. It takes a small load off the CPU but nothing you will notice. I went from onboard sound on my old Asus A7N8X to a sounblaster 5.1 Live and got about 1% performance gain. Dont bother unless you need better sound quality.
Click to expand...

Well, I've definatley got the soundcard issue down lol - no need to upgrade, but just from an opinon and experienced point of view, should i change my onboard 'AC'97 vinyl audio' to a dedicated soundcard??

and once again, is the 7800gtx the best gfx card to get?? and roughly how much does it cost??
What about dx10 gfx cards comming soon?
 
and once again, is the 7800gtx the best gfx card to get??
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Depends on what you mean by 'best'. It is a higher-end card with great quality. The best card to get is a card that you can afford while giving you what you want in performance. Everyone has a different 'best' card for them.

Newegg.com has one for 479USD.
 
ummm, ok, i see... i've got another question actually that i just thought i'd ask... at the moment i have 1gb of RAM, i know that RAM can increase system performance and speed, but what if i bought 2gb of RAM, other than improving my system performance in general, would it have any affects on gaming performance and or quality of graphics????
 
Resonance456 said:
ummm, ok, i see... i've got another question actually that i just thought i'd ask... at the moment i have 1gb of RAM, i know that RAM can increase system performance and speed, but what if i bought 2gb of RAM, other than improving my system performance in general, would it have any affects on gaming performance and or quality of graphics????
Click to expand...

The short answer is yes it will improve performance. Of course RAM only improves performance if you USE it. For instance, upgrading from 512MB to 1024MB would make a HUGE performance improvement for gaming because most modern games will use the additional RAM. The jump from 1gb to 2 gb will be less of an improvement because not all of the RAM will be used. Only games with very large maps and such would ever use more than 1gb or RAM regularly. Not to say that it won't make a difference, but I would say that any performance increase that you would get would be almost invisible to you.

In my opinion, reducing your RAM usage will give you the most performance boost. Kill processes you don't need, services you don't need, programs that don't need to be running, etc. This will do a great deal to improve your gaming performance at no cost.

Anyway enough ramblings.
 
Any 7800 is probably your best bet right now, later down like 3 years from now(or more) you should get a DX10 card as most games will demand it
 
ahh right, ok, so having a dx10 capable card right now is not essential or required in any manner, it is ok to wait a little bit before buying one?? but what about with windows vista, doesnt that need dx 10? or can u still run on dx 9?

by the way, another question, if i buy a GeForce 7800 GTX would i need to buy a bigger PSU (power supply unit) for example such as 700wotts??
 
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