Help me choose

[tubago]

I'm deciding to upgrade my pc. Besides upgrading the motherboard and with 1 gig of ddr2 i'm also thinking about upgrading the graphiccs card, but i nedd your help. I don't know what model to choose:
ATI X700 pro
nVidia 6800/6600
Which one is better? In terms of quality/price
(i think they are in the same range of price, about 250***8364;)
Are these cards availble with pci express 16x? is pci express 16 better than agp8?

[bigH2O]

I got fussed at once for suggesting AGP over PCI Express, but I still like AGP over the current evolution of PCI E because of the dedicated bus design. I'll defer this question to some of the other members here.

[Zero Tolerance]

LOL

I didnt fuss at ya....just provided you with proof that one day AGP will go the wayside of the floppy disk.

:D

If you are gonna build a new game box. I would personally go with a motherboard that supports SLI and get 2- 6600 GT cards. The 6600 GT's came first as a PCI-E only...but now I think you can buy them in the AGP form as well for a lil more money.

[bigH2O]

Hehehehe... notice *I* didn't say who fussed at me :)

Zero, take a look at the front of your compter. Not that fancy smancy server you have, but that everyday regular old box that you still use for everything. See that little slot in the front of it? That's a floppy drive.

Your analogy would have been better if you had said AGP was going the way of the 6" amber display... AGP may have one foot in the grave, but PCI-E is holding AGP's other foot up. Until PCI-E evolves to the point where it channels the bus to isolate the data, and it is on a dedicated bus to the processor, PCI-E will be the floppy disc... not AGP. PCI-E is just a fatter pipe of PCI. It's a 16 bit shared data bus as opposed to an 8 bit shared bus. Granted it's twice the bandwidth, but it's still not a dedicated bus, and until another dedicated video pipe comes down the line, AGP will rule as far as the ability to use your PCI bus without affecting your video performance.

Just another .02

[Zero Tolerance]

Zero, take a look at the front of your compter. Not that fancy smancy server you have, but that everyday regular old box that you still use for everything. See that little slot in the front of it? That's a floppy drive.


LOL....I took that out back around the time the dinasours dissapeard. I have no floppy drives at all. None of my notebooks have them either. I do however have an external floppy drive that is USB just for my friends that are stuck in the past and insist on giving me things on a floppy. :D

As far as a dedicated AGP vs a shared PCI-E bus. I would take the shared PCI-E bus any day.

Now...I say that based on the fact that I would be making my choice on the sole premise of building a gamer box. With that in mind....how many other PCI devices would I need to have onboard? None come to mind to me...unless I just had to have the latest and greatest soundcard.

In todays age of motherboards....you already have ethernet and at least 5.1 surround built in. Even a decent gfx package onboard for regular computing. So there would be no need to have more than 1 PCI device....well unless you were gonna run 2 vidcards in SLI.

The reality is we both have a very valid point to make...and both are true. It really all depends on how you are gonna use your box "ie all out game machine...or jack of all trades machine"....will be the question you need to ask yourself b4 taking your own stand on which is the best application for you.

[bigH2O]

Excellent point my friend. Kudos to you.

[tubago]

I wasn't thinking about sli by now. I would buy a regular motherboard and later, when games start to need more i buy another videocard and a sli motherboard.
I was thinking about the 6600gt or the X700pro. Will i be able to play, let's say, age of empires 3, NFS Most wanted with a high quality at 1280x1024?

[Zero Tolerance]

I wasn't thinking about sli by now. I would buy a regular motherboard and later, when games start to need more i buy another videocard and a sli motherboard.
I was thinking about the 6600gt or the X700pro. Will i be able to play, let's say, age of empires 3, NFS Most wanted with a high quality at 1280x1024?

What do you mean! Those games are already here! Ever hear of Unreal Tournament 2004? Doom 3D? Half Life? shall I go on!

Im sure that whatever you build that is at least a year or newer technology...will play any game at a decent rate. But you are asking for sportscar speed at station wagon prices.

Even a top of the line gamebox will be pushed to its upper limits trying to play any newer game at 1280x1024.

My simple rule is this. If you plan on playing more than 1 game title on a pc...consider that PC a "gamer PC".

You just mentioned at least 3 games you will be playing...so you may as well build a capable box. If you cant afford it now....save for a while and build it when you can.

just my .02's

[tubago]

i'll save up some more money and buy a sli ready motherboard and a nvidia geforce 7800, later i buy another and link both

[tubago]

and btw.
2 more question:
SLI works with pci or agp slots?
How much a sli motherboard costs?

[Zero Tolerance]

SLI is only for PCI-E at the moment. However there are other ways of running two AGP cards together....but it requires a daughter board of some sort.

There is also "I THINK" an AGP card that is SLI....you will just have to do your research.

IMO I would only go with a motherboard with SLI. The rest out there are only trying to do what that already does. I just feel that it would perform better overall than any imitation in another factor.

Someone else may chime in with more input though and I am all eyes for reading. :D

[tubago]

yeah
i will go for a sli motherboard
but as i don't have the money for everything right now i'll have to use my old geforce 4 mx4000 for a bit longer.
Thx for everything
;)