AGP query

[air_man_woody]

I have an AMD Athlon XP 2100 266MHz FSB with 1024MB of PC2100 DDR SDRAM weilding a PNY Verto GeForce 4 Ti 4600 128MB DDR video card (AGP 4X) all held together at the seams by an ASUS A7N266-E motherboard (AGP 4X support). My question is can I run an AGP 8X video card on this motherboard. I am looking at a PNY Verto GeForce FX 5900 128MB DDR video card but it is AGP 8X. Any info you guys can give would be awesome!!! I need to know what my motherboard can handle?!?! I already have an AMD Athlon XP 2600 266MHZ FSB processor on it's way. I want to run my games faster!!!

 

[BxSlipSk8718]

OK my advice is to get a new mobo with 8x support because *8x is really important makes ur games runn megga fast look at a and yeah if you do the card it should still work but no were near as good as with 8x

 

[aye29]

I would not recommend getting a new motherboard just to upgrade to AGP 8X. From the benchmarks I've seen, you wont get much performance gains from going from 4X to 8X in todays games.

 

[nvalhalla]

Yeah, it'll work, but with only 4x AGP speeds, the card won't be much faster than the older card. You are cutting the pipeline that the card transfers information to the rest of your system in half. You shoud look at an asus A7N8X board. They are $70 at Pricewatch.com

 

[air_man_woody]

Does anyone know of a Socket A mobo with a 266MHz FSB with AGP 8X and PC2100 DDR SDRAM support OR a faster AGP 4X video card? I really don't want to lay down the $$ on a CPU/mobo/memory combo (which means I'm basically building a new computer).

 

[air_man_woody]

OK, I'm retarded. I just found out from this site: (http://www.petrosin.com/trading/CDD/prdDetails.asp?prvd=AS&prdID=04) that the A7N8X Deluxe supposedly handles the 266MHz FSB and PC2100 in addition to it's other perks such as AGP 8X!!! OK, time to do some more research on this momma!

 

[nvalhalla]

The A7N8X is a great motherboard. Yes it is backwards compatable with what you have and forwards with all the XP line of CPUs. You don't have to get the deluxe, but it adds a firewire port if you need it, and the e deluxe gives you RAID 1, 0 if you want that too. Both are more expensive though.

 

[air_man_woody]

Thanks for all of the help!!!

 

[nvalhalla]

Just avoid the A7n8X-X board as it doesn't have dual channel memory supprot. I think the motherboard I mentioned at pricewatch for $70 was an X version. They have a normal version for $85. Don't get the X version, not worth the savings.