Going PCI-Express, need help.

M

mETRo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
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Ok, I am selling off my entire AGP Intel gaming system and going AMD and PCI-E (finally). I am going to be using a mobo that supports AGP and PCI-E (Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 w/ an AMD A64 3200+), however I don't want to keep my AGP 6600GT. I cannot afford something like a 7800GT right now, I wish I could but i can't.

Soooo.. my question is this, on about $180 budget for a card (not including MIR's, I don't deal with those and I don't have the extra cash to spit out and wait for one), which PCI-E card would net me decent gains over an AGP 6600GT (I'm not looking for anything life changing, I'll upgrade later but I want something that's slightly better for now)?

I've been looking at things like ATI X800GTO's and such because of their VIVO capabilities as well as the jump to 256MB of RAM and 256-bit interface. If you guys could give me some recommendations I would really appreciate it.
 
I'd vote 6800gs, plain and simple. it'd be closer to ~200, but everything I've seen in terms of sheer performance and overclocking capabilites point to it as a winner. there are a couple of posts here about personal experience, and they're all ranting and raving about how great the card is...
 
Unfortunately I am on a very tight budget, but I need a card, so it HAS to be in the $180 or less range. Anything I can get for that money that will give me the best bang for the buck is what I'm looking for.
 
well then, if its 180 firm, then the gto would probably be the best bet; the connect3d ones are apparently all that for overclocking/unlocking, and it looks like this from newegg is plenty cheap.

people seem to be able to unlock these cards and get them running @ x800xt levels, so that'd be your best bet.
 
RE: The Asrock mobo....ummm.....if you aren't using your current AGP card....then why? (And a ULi chipset, too - YIKES!)

You can get a nice nForce4 Ultra motherboard for that same price!

Also, RE: the 6800GS. Seriously - that's the card you NEED to get, even if you have to make compromises in other areas of your system. Can you cut back on the money spent on the CPU? Mobo? Ram? (Maybe buy refurbs?) It SO much more powerful than the $180 cards (which basically limits you to 6600GTs or ATI's X800 GTOs) it's not even funny. And for $209 shipped...I mean, really, $29? That's not even the price of a dinner!
 
dderidex said:
RE: The Asrock mobo....ummm.....if you aren't using your current AGP card....then why? (And a ULi chipset, too - YIKES!)

You can get a nice nForce4 Ultra motherboard for that same price!

Also, RE: the 6800GS. Seriously - that's the card you NEED to get, even if you have to make compromises in other areas of your system. Can you cut back on the money spent on the CPU? Mobo? Ram? (Maybe buy refurbs?) It SO much more powerful than the $180 cards (which basically limits you to 6600GTs or ATI's X800 GTOs) it's not even funny. And for $209 shipped...I mean, really, $29? That's not even the price of a dinner!
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I already have the CPU coming, That leaves me with a budget of about $340 for a mobo with PCI-E that will work well with the A64 3200+ Venice and allow me to OC a little bit, I need 4GB of RAM support and Sata150 and Sata2 in addition to AGP and PCI-E on the same board is nice. I also need a video card as I sold the 6600GT AGP, and I need a gig of DDR400 RAM in 1x1GB form. I'd like to purchase them all from the same place, preferrably Newegg.

I don't wanna deal with refurbs, I never have and never will buy used/refurbed parts like this, and I don't need something that will crush everything out there in terms of a card, just something that outperforms my lovely 6600GT which barely nets me 30fps on SOME medium settings in BF2 with a P4 2.8, and a gig of DDR400.

If you can meet my budget requirements and recommend me some parts that will work with what I want to do and the CPU I have coming then I'll consider another route. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to have a 6800GS, I'd love one, but I don't have any room at all to move on the budget, I have many other things to buy by the end of the month.

EDIT: Oh, and the Vid card needs to have component HDTV out support. Because I use my HDTV a lot as a monitor when I game and it only supports component input.
 
Baker_God said:
oh, didn't see that :p . What ram were you looking at?
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Just some cheapie GSKILL DDR400 for now simply because it's $81. I will be able to spend a lot more money on this after the Holidays and new year, but I sold off one rig and I need to replace it with something for now.

If I weren't going to buy an Xbox360, I'd go all out here, but I have to have both haha.

I did however to forego the X800GTO and opted for the EVGA 6800GS, and I instead decided to use my old PQi stick of 512MB DDR400 and am ordering another matching one from Newegg for $35 to cover the extra cost of the GS. Still sticking with the Asrock board though, I keep hearing good things about it.
 
mETRo said:
Just some cheapie GSKILL DDR400 for now simply because it's $81. I will be able to spend a lot more money on this after the Holidays and new year, but I sold off one rig and I need to replace it with something for now.

If I weren't going to buy an Xbox360, I'd go all out here, but I have to have both haha.

I did however to forego the X800GTO and opted for the EVGA 6800GS, and I instead decided to use my old PQi stick of 512MB DDR400 and am ordering another matching one from Newegg for $35 to cover the extra cost of the GS. Still sticking with the Asrock board though, I keep hearing good things about it.
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While I question your decision RE: the XBox360 (especially given that there is 99.99% chance you won't get it before Christmas *anyway* - MS is producing enough units to fill about 50% of the US preorders), fine, we can move on from that.

The ram decision isn't bad. 2x512mb sticks gets you the 1gb pretty much a min for modern games, and you've still got dual-channel. That's great!

Your CPU choice is sound, and going for that video card is a decision you will NOT regret.

But, seriously, that Asrock mobo? C'mon, whoever recommended that to you - ask them to have their head examined.

ULi (formerly ALi - you might know them as the maker of the slowest and most unstable Socket A chipset ever made) just plain sucks for mobo chipsets. They have gotten passable with their latest SB chipsets, but the Asrock board you are looking at still doesn't use that one - it's still using the older M1567 south bridge with the terrible USB 2.0 performance, and hideous SATA II performance (the SATA II performance on the M1567 is actually slower than the SATA I performance on an nForce4 board).

I'm sure some people rave about the board, since it can support either an AGP or PCI-E video card - for much the same reason people raved about the ECS K7S5A back in they day (that could support both SDRAM and DDR SDRAM). Thing is, supporting both is NOT a feature to anything but a budget, as it can do neither as well as more specialized solutions.

And you AREN'T using an AGP card! So why waste the time and money on a board supporting that legacy standard?
 
dderidex said:
While I question your decision RE: the XBox360 (especially given that there is 99.99% chance you won't get it before Christmas *anyway* - MS is producing enough units to fill about 50% of the US preorders), fine, we can move on from that.

The ram decision isn't bad. 2x512mb sticks gets you the 1gb pretty much a min for modern games, and you've still got dual-channel. That's great!

Your CPU choice is sound, and going for that video card is a decision you will NOT regret.

But, seriously, that Asrock mobo? C'mon, whoever recommended that to you - ask them to have their head examined.

ULi (formerly ALi - you might know them as the maker of the slowest and most unstable Socket A chipset ever made) just plain sucks for mobo chipsets. They have gotten passable with their latest SB chipsets, but the Asrock board you are looking at still doesn't use that one - it's still using the older M1567 south bridge with the terrible USB 2.0 performance, and hideous SATA II performance (the SATA II performance on the M1567 is actually slower than the SATA I performance on an nForce4 board).

I'm sure some people rave about the board, since it can support either an AGP or PCI-E video card - for much the same reason people raved about the ECS K7S5A back in they day (that could support both SDRAM and DDR SDRAM). Thing is, supporting both is NOT a feature to anything but a budget, as it can do neither as well as more specialized solutions.

And you AREN'T using an AGP card! So why waste the time and money on a board supporting that legacy standard?
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I pulled a few strings with a manager/friend at a local Best Buy, I will definitely be getting an Xbox 360 on launch day, as well as a few games, so it's gonna be about $600+ that I won't have to spend on this rig until after the Holidays and I need it up and running.

I looked over all the parts and honestly, I cannot spend anymore money than I have allotted for these 3 things. I'm not so much worried about having an AGP slot on the board (although it is nice, I have some real old AGP cards that I could use if something happens to the 6800) as I am about the price. I need a lot of RAM capacity as I will be upgrading to 3+ gigs after Xmas, I need Sata AND IDE, and I really need to stay under $340 SHIPPED for all of this. Oh, and I need it quick, I was going to use next-day from Newegg.

Is there another comparable board that will fit the bill and stay in the same price range that I'm just not seeing? I might be overlooking one of there is, I'm not sure. If I am please let me know and point me to one.
 
This nForce4 mobo springs right to mind. No voltage control to improve overclocking, but it doesn't look like the Asrock has that, either.

It does have you SATA and IDE, though - and can support 4 banks of ram (although why any sane person would WANT to do that, gods only knows - you lose more in going from 1T command rate to 2T than you could ever POSSIBLY gain by having 4gb).
 
dderidex said:
This nForce4 mobo springs right to mind. No voltage control to improve overclocking, but it doesn't look like the Asrock has that, either.

It does have you SATA and IDE, though - and can support 4 banks of ram (although why any sane person would WANT to do that, gods only knows - you lose more in going from 1T command rate to 2T than you could ever POSSIBLY gain by having 4gb).
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Noted. Thanks for the reply, I dunno how I missed that one. I do have one small concern which I'm sure will turn into nothing once it's explained to me better. I haven't been following up on SATAII at all, so the fact that this board says it's got 4 SATAII headers, will they work with regular SATA150 HDD's? I'm sure it's a dumb question, but I figured I'd ask as I haven't taken the time to research that. If you believe it will be a more stable board, especially for gaming and other things, then I will say for a dollar more I'll probably go with it.

Thanks!
 
dderidex said:
This nForce4 mobo springs right to mind. No voltage control to improve overclocking, but it doesn't look like the Asrock has that, either.

It does have you SATA and IDE, though - and can support 4 banks of ram (although why any sane person would WANT to do that, gods only knows - you lose more in going from 1T command rate to 2T than you could ever POSSIBLY gain by having 4gb).
Click to expand...
No voltage control? Of course there is voltage control. Unless of course my BIOS is very different...

Anyway yeah, that's a good priced mobo. 1GB of RAM will set you back about $85-90. So $70 mobo + $90 RAM leaves exactly $180. I say hold out a bit and use a PCI card in the meanwhile until you can get together an extra 20-30 for the 6800GS.
 
Shameless Liar said:
No voltage control? Of course there is voltage control. Unless of course my BIOS is very different...

Anyway yeah, that's a good priced mobo. 1GB of RAM will set you back about $85-90. So $70 mobo + $90 RAM leaves exactly $180. I say hold out a bit and use a PCI card in the meanwhile until you can get together an extra 20-30 for the 6800GS.
Click to expand...

I've already decided to go ahead and get the 6800GS, what I am doing is sacrificing 512MB of RAM. I already have a stick of 512MB DDR400 from PQi, so I'm just going to use that and add another 512MB stick from PQi so I can get the 6800 now. I'll upgrade the RAM later on, I like playing BF2 too much right now to skimp out on a card hehe.

This board looks good, I guess the only thing I don't like is that I'm seeing complaints of failing USB and LAN ports. Other than that, it looks like the board I should go with.
 
Shameless Liar said:
Anyway yeah, that's a good priced mobo. 1GB of RAM will set you back about $85-90. So $70 mobo + $90 RAM leaves exactly $180. I say hold out a bit and use a PCI card in the meanwhile until you can get together an extra 20-30 for the 6800GS.
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He noted that he already had 512mb of DDR - just buying another 512 to get that 1 gb even is the best plan. Gets dual-channel, and saves enough to get the 6800 GS.

That would be a rockin' system, then! (For a budget)
 
i have the asrock board and there is stability issues with certain types of ram (namely the corsair ram i have)

i can only get it to run at 166mhz stable-y

if i could go back and do it all over id definitely go with an nforce4 ultra board....unless... hey wanna buy a board for 40 bucks?
 
osalcido said:
i have the asrock board and there is stability issues

id definitely go with an nforce4 ultra board....unless... hey wanna buy a board for 40 bucks?
Click to expand...

Oops.... The guys told you so. You know you really should listen to the advice given to you ;)
 
Hi,i ve got an AsRock Dual SATA 2 and although i don't overclock,i m quite happy with it and can't beat the price.Now,since i visit daily a forum with a topic of 160+ pages about ULI,the problems you might encounter are:

-The SATA II works at full speed with the BETA drivers available at AsRock site.The ones in the CD are slow
-Contrary to what said by another forumer,i ve seen good compatibility with RAM brands.Myself i use 1 DIMM Samsung 333@400 (TwinMos branded) and 1 DIMM TwinMos (code M2 something) 400Mhz and work fine in DUAL channel (they aren't even of the same chip manufacturer).
I ve read about NF4 boards being much pickier
-Your RAM MAY not work at 1T,but at 2T even with 2 DIMMS
-In case you overclock,the voltage options are limited (up to 1.45 for VCore and "High" for VDimm which is about 2.7-2.8).However,most people in that forum are overclocking quite a bit.

At default,as i use it,it's very stable.Also if you read reviews in internet ,you ll see it outperforms in many tests some nf4 boards.

Regards
 
As far as the asrock not running your memory stable above 166mhz, are you running 4 sticks? And have you actually set it to run at 200mhz in the bios and it failed? I have had no issues with my Asrock board.
 
The only problem i know about RAM being run at 166 is when you have the "flexibility option" enabled in BIOS.It lowers your frequence from 400 to 333 in order to achieve increased compatibility.
 
Well it's down to the wire here, I'll be placing my order shortly. I believe I am going to go with the Chaintech NF4 board, unless I can be thoroughly convinced why I shouldn't. Does anyone else have one? I realize this is kind of off the topic of Video Cards, but that's what made me wanna do this in the first place.
 
Well I made my purchase.

Chaintech VNF4/Ultra mobo

PQi 512MB DDR400

And Newegg just dropped their price on the EVGA 6800GS from $209 to 199 with free shipping, so that makes this deal fit perfectly into my price range. Total cost was $322 shipped via 2nd day.

Thanks for all the help guys.
 
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