Thread: Need advice on video card

  1. #1
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Aug 2001
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    Need advice on video card

    Well once again in the wonderful world of computers my system has been found wanting.

    I built this system not too long ago, a year perhaps, and went with the fastest AMD CPU they had, but did not go PCI-Express.

    Here are my specs:

    ASUS A7N8XE-Deluxe
    Maxtor 100GB SATA
    Maxtor 20GB IDE (OS drive only, cache is directed to 100GB)
    AMD Athlon XP 3200 @ 2.2
    1GB Corsair DDR400

    I would love to upgrade to:

    ASUS A8N32SLI-Deluxe
    AMD Athlon 64
    - FX is way outta my range
    - X2 is more reasonable, but still high as hell
    - base 64 prob my choice
    - Sempron is out of the question - definite no
    2GB Corsair DDR400

    However, the cost is just too damn high right now. So I'm trying to squeeze some more out of my AGP system.

    I'm thinking about buying this video card:

    Site to buy:
    http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...6748&CatId=935

    Manufacturer's site:
    http://www.bfgtech.com/7800GS_256.html

    Review site:
    http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...gp/default.asp


    Was wondering if any of you have had a BFG card before? I have always had Leadtek cards but their availability is horrible and they do not offer a lifetime warranty. I've also heard tales of them releasing a 'lite' Winfast 6800GT A400 and yet not reducing the price at all. The lite version has the clock at 900 instead of 1,000 and 300 instead of 350 on the RAMDAC.

    BFG is offering a lifetime warranty on this card and it comes overclocked. It's also on the 7800 GTX board and it's the GeForce 7 series chipset instead of the 6.

    Their test system in the review was an AMD Athlon 64FX-53 which is insanely expensive right now. I definitely will not get the same results, but all I'm looking for is to run some of my favorite games in 1024x768 >=30 FPS.

    Right now I have a LeadTek GeForce 3 TI 64MB 4x card which is big time outdated and chugging the entire system.

    So........what should I do? Upgrade to 64-bit, PCI-E and pay out the nose or pay out the nose for a video card and squeeze a little more outta my current rig?

  2. #2
    Personally, I'd upgrade my mobo to the ASUS A8N, pick up an X2 like this one and get yourself a PCI-E card. Leave the extra RAM until you can afford it. I'm using that same mobo and cpu and its been nothing short of heavenly. A PCI-E card for roughly the same price is likely going to outperform that AGP one. I guarantee you'll never regret the money spent on a dual core processor. And as far making sure you can always upgrade further when the happens (next year ), the SLI mobo is a smart move as you can always throw on a second GPU.

    Its a little costly, but if you can swing it, its probably better than throwing away money in the short term... At least, that was my self-excuse when I did it.
    "There's always another way"
    -lightatdawn (lightatdawn.cprogramming.com)

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