For those of you wondering what type of video card to get here is a very nice one from newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102483

This is the ATI X850 which is very nice. It has 16 pipes down is pretty much the same as processor transfer bits for a front bus.

The ATI x800 series is about $150 cheaper but not as nice. 256 mb of ddr3 ram is the best way to go in the lower price range.

Go with the PCI-e if you can. It would not be very practical to pay $200-$500 for an agp card that will quickly be out of date.

64 bit is here and the software will soon follow, don't invest in 32 bit technology if you don't have to.

Questions or comments...post away.

A little basic theory of computers and how they are rated.

The old agp video cards generally tell you speed in mhz and memory capacity in megs.

The new PCI-e cards rate the cards as the chipset or cpu speed known as core clock. The memory speed and the pipes down or pixel rendering pipeline.

Mhz is straightline speed or how many times the signal can switch from 0 to plus.

A bit is known as basic bianary counting:
..............1=1 bit
............10=2 bit
..........100=4 bit
........1000= 8 bit
......10000=16 bit
....100000=32 bit
..1000000=64 bit
10000000=128 bit
note the place value:
1=1
10=2
11=3
100=4
101=5
and so forth. Each bit states how much information can be passed down the pipeline.

In 256 bit code this 011111110000010000000010000000010000 equates to this:
XXXXXXX
0000X0000
0000X0000
0000X0000
0000X0000

or this, a very crude T
XXXXXXX
......X......
......X......
......X......
......X......

Now to make the crude T in color you will have to add 128 bits of pixel rendering for each 1 and 0 in the first line. If you think about it in these very basic terms where my crude T will require 15360 bits to make it a high resolution fading color T.

Digital pwns!

Compliments of skyhawk.

I wouldnt Buy any video cards yet.. This is a big year for PC game releases such as Prey, Quake 4, Quake Wars, Duke Nukem Forever. All of these games are expected to be relased This fall. Mainly because of X-box. These games will be released soon as X-box and SP3 comes out this fall.

I am looking forward forward to this fal because of this. I will not upgrade untill then. Right now I am running AMD +3500 Barton 2gigs of Sdram and a Ati xt9800. My system is sweet now but will suck monkey balls when these games come out. Dont up grade until then. I will be going AMD 64bit and by then the prices will be way down. What most of us have runs our games just fine. Just wait dude. Wait until the fall when the new atix800 comes down in price. Even now you can duel the x850xt if you have the right mother board. If you buy now you are wasting your money. New technology will be out by then as pentium is crying with there lame ass 64 bit chip... I am a hard core AMD and my faith resides to them. But again, 6 months will pass and every six months something new comes out... Quake 4 will not come out until the new x-box is release this coming Chritmas. Save you money and upgrade then....

Skyhawk

www.ftw4ever.com

Compliments of the_rock

first you need to look at the Core clock and the Memory Clock
Core clock any thing over 400 is good
Memory Clock over 400
the video cards that cost 600.00 have a core and memory like this
Core clock: 540MHz
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 2
Memory Clock: 1180MHz
Memory Interface: 256-bit
OpenGL: OpenGL 1.5
PixelPipelines: 16
TV Tuner: No
TV-Out: HDTV/S-Video/Composite Out
VIVO: Yes

good place to get video cards are
www.newegg.com
www.pricewatch.com

My two cents on this issue

Be careful when you buy OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer). You may need a power supply adapter which the OEM will sell you for 25 dollars. You could always buy the new power supply that supports the new video cards for about $100.

It is better to get everything in the box at one time and be done with it. If you don't get the proper cables, then you have to research what you need then go find it. It is not worth the trouble.

I believe its called Moores Law, and it states that every 6months transistors double!

But MT, I cant pass up this deal on this puter! Its a new dell. It has a P4 540 3.2ghz cpu that supports Hyper-Threading, 915g chipset and a 775 socket . Its has a 800Mhz fsb. A gig of ram. Im not sure of the hard drive at least a 80gig! Im pretty sure it comes with a ATI x600 video card, which is 128megs!
Im sure there other stuff it comes with. I just cant remember!
For $400

I will find out more info this week!

If you can't pass it up, don't. No matter what happens, it will be good box to run linux. I think it will run q4 but target jr warns that an x800 is the minimum card to put money on.

If it comes with a monitor and keyboard, it sounds like a good deal to me. Look in Fridays sac times for the Fry's add. They are always running deals on 64 bit stuff. Look hard at 64 before you buy 32 bit.

Remember Pixel Rendering takes a lot of resources. Look at the crude "T" above, it takes five passes or scans at 256 bits to create one frame. Make the "T" in color you multiply the bits or scans by 128 to get the same frame. on-line gaming requires high frames per second or fps.

If you are skipping around the screen or freeze on the screen because you got cheap with the video card, I will frag you with no remorse.

What would you guys recommend for a guy to get a newer vid card to a board that doesnt have any pci-e slots.

(currently Fx5200)


Prices and links prefered

Newegg has this little sweety that will rock your old agp slot. Make sure you have plenty of cooling.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102492

What is your price range? If you have the money upgrade the whole works. I would hate to spend that kind of cash for an agp card. The card is very nice with rocket like speed but it does not have the pipes because it is agp.

Do you have the other hardware to support that type of card. An AMD 2500 barton (64 bit) or standard 3200 or better should work fine. I would recommend a 600mhz or faster front bus to carry the information.

Here is some info right off the ATI website. Target edits are green.

Radeon® X850 XT 256MB PCI Express® + FREE SHIPPING
Price: $399.00

Stock : In Stock Part Number: 100435427

The Radeon® X850 XT graphics card is designed for extreme gaming performance with 16 pipelines, incredible frame rates and ATI's industry-leading 3D image enhancement technology. The Radeon® X850 XT delivers further on the promise of High-Definition Gaming.

Features This is Marketing stuff
Extreme Gaming
Brilliant image quality and no compromise in performance for serious gamers.
CrossFire™ Radey
CrossFire™ ignites an entirely new gaming experience by accelerating all your games, all the time, with the power of multiple GPUs within a single PC. Ultimate Stability & Control Featuring ATI’s Catalyst™ Control Center, a powerful and easy to use graphics configuration tool.
Specifications Pipes and Ram Speed!
16 parallel rendering pipelines
256MB GDDR3 memory
PCI Express® native X16 lanes support
Direct X® 9.0 and OpenGL® 2.0 support more junk
SmartShader™ HD technology SmoothVision™ HD technology
VideoShader™ HD technology Hyper Z™ HD technology
3Dc™ Support DVD video playback S-video and composite video output
HDTV Support
System Requirements Note the power requirements!
PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard and one additional adjacent expansion slot
Connection to the system power supply is required. The power supply should have a specialized 12V graphics card power connector (adapter included)
350-Watt power supply or greater recommended
256MB of system memory
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
DVD playback requires DVD drive
Graphics Technology This is what is know as the core
Radeon® X850 XT Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
Memory Configuration
256MB GDDR3 memory
256-bit memory interface
Operating Systems
Windows® XP (Home or Professional)
Windows® XP x64 Edition Windows® Media Center Edition Windows® 2000 with Service Pack 1 (or later) Warranty 3-year limited Display Support DVI-I connector for digital CRTs or flat panels VGA connector for analog displays S-Video/Composite Video In/Video Out adapter cable Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions and refresh rate