Graphic Card

shrek101

Card I was looking at last night has just gone down in price at Tekheads

http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=603763

T4i

Rex_Mundi wrote:

PCI-E (PCI Express) Is a new replacement slot for graphics cards. This will offer much faster data transfer between your motherbaord and the graphics card.

It's an important difference.

In theory this is true, but when you look at the specifications of a motherboard anything above the AGP 2x standard is a total waste. No graphic card on this planet can produce the amount of data to benefit from 4x AGP or PCI-E. Another marketing scam!

Will you be playing the latest games? Or is it just for watching DVD's, video editing, viewing images.....etc? The step between a new 'everyday' graphics card and a graphics card for gamers is HUGE! You can pay upto £350 for a card that plays the latest games.....Or £30 for a box standard card.

T4i

The nVidia GeForce FX5200 128MB TV-OUT/DVI (PCI) - Retail looks fine.

Its a newish card with 128MB RAM so no problems there. :beer:

Joe_Bloggs

Selling a PC without an AGP slot is a kick in the teeth for anyone who buys one. If you open your PC up you may see where they could have put an AGP socket .The AGP slot has been out for 8 years, these days manufacturers are producing cards in PCI-express format as well as AGP (Very little performance difference). Don't confuse PCI-e with PCI as they are generations apart. Very few cards are made for PCI these days. At http://www.scan.co.uk/ you can buy a few PCI cards that would have been stars in their day including a power color 256Mb Radeon 9250 and an Nvidia 256 Mb FX5200 with video out. These card are ancient superceeded designs that may be better than onboard graphics that tend to share central processor memory and hinder performance. Each will cost significantly more than the motherboard that they plug into.
J_B.

jma_4

Not if you're just after a PC for simple things though, horses for courses and all that. I wouldn't even touch a "ready made" PC if I was looking to play games but I'm not and I suspect that a lot of others aren't either.

That nVidia card is pretty decent. You won't get killer performance from it, that's not the point but it will speed the PC up and run your average graphically intensive apps well enough for the price. It has an applet (accessed through Control Panel) to manage the use of a second monitor or TV. You can have both on at the same time and stretch the desktop over two monitors if you like

S-Video is pretty decent but if have a decent TV (e.g. something that can take VGA in, like a plasma or LCD) then you're laughing really. Just think about playing something like GTR on a 42" plasma or, if you're boring, displaying your latest graph to family and friends

saubryn

As someone who plays a lot of games (and is on a degree course to one day write them) I would dispute those who are saying that there's not that much difference between PCI-E and AGP. In terms of one card for each then I agree the difference is minor, but there is a technology called SLI which has been brought back to life (I remember the days when Voodoo used to offer it years ago.)

With SLI you can run two identical PCI-E cards at once, and the difference in performance is HUGE.

I have two PCs here, one running an AGP 6800 and one running two SLI PCI-E cards of the same type - you can see the difference both in benchmarks, in performance in games, and in speed of rendering in applications like Poser and 3DSMax.

Of course for the purposes most people use their PCs for this extra expense (and it is very expensive to build a SLI PCI-E system at the moment) isn't worth it, but if you do need the top performance then there are things out there that will use it.

Rex_Mundi

PCI is the standard expansion slot for most cards that you will add to your computer. It stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect.

PCI-E (PCI Express) Is a new replacement slot for graphics cards. This will offer much faster data transfer between your motherbaord and the graphics card.

It's an important difference. You need to check out what slots you have so you can buy the right type of card.

The important difference I'm pointing out is the difference between PCI and PCI-E. Which is exactly what the original question was about.

As someone who plays a lot of games (and is on a degree course to one day write them)

saubryn. What course are you doing? I'm currently in my fourth year of my degree, BSc (hons) IT and Computing with the Open University.

Joe_Bloggs

The dual SLI thing is a valid fact for those with more money than sense. Good luck to Saubryn and Rex-Mundi in their Exams.
PS the new school is racing is away, without a syllabus, into the future. You only get taught the old stuff but you are free to create something better.
J_B

Rex_Mundi

Shrek

Having installed PCI cards in the past. I've been lucky enough to only have had to change the BIOS to make the change. I just did a quick search and found Dells advice for your model.


* Open the case cover and add the PCI video card
* Leave the monitor connected to the onboard video because nothing will come out of the PCI card until the drivers have been installed
* Turn on (or restart) your computer
* Let the computer boot up and load the drivers off of the CD provided with the card or the XP found drivers if you prefer
* Turn off the computer
* Plug monitor into the new PCI card and power up
* When the blue Dell logo appears, press F2
* Down-arrow to Integrated Devices [press the ENTER key]
* Down-arrow to Primary Video Controller
* Use the left/right arrow keys to switch between onboard or Auto. Set it to Auto
* Press escape to Save and Exit
* At the first beep or on the blue Dell screen, tap the F8 key or the F5 key
* At some point, the Advanced Options menu will appear
* Select Safe Mode [Press the Enter Key]
* Select the first or only operating system listed [press the ENTER key]
* Right click the My Computer icon
* Click Properties
* Click the Hardware tab and/or the Device Manager button
* Open the Display Adaptors. You should see both the the Intel and the added PCI video card. The added PCI video card might have an exclamation mark on it
* Double click the listing for Intel whatever
* At the bottom under "Device Usage", click the down arrow and change this to "Do not use this device, DISABLE"
* Click OK- Apply- OK
* Close all boxes when done
* Click Start- Turn Off Computer- Restart
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_video&message.id=93965