Small video card upgrade

[Millenniumtiger]

I have a Geforce mx2 and i want to upgrade to either a Radeon 256MB 9250 PCI or an AGP 256MB 9550. I have a available PCI slot and and AGP 4x slot. i've heard the agp will only work halfway because the card is meant for 8X. if that's true, then i should go with the PCI 9250, correct?

 

[bigbaddog]

When put in a 4X slot the 8X card should revert to 4X...which is still much better than PCI. Go with the AGP card.

 

[talldude123]

If the slot is PCI-Express, then get PCI. PCI-express is very fast for gaming.

 

[Millenniumtiger]

The 9550 in 4X is still better than a regular PCI 9250?

 

[Millenniumtiger]

here are the cards on bestbuy.com...the specs are similar, but the 9250 has a higher resolution and they both are running at 400 for clock speed. so how is the AGP one better?

9250: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6832779&type=product&id=1093468042109

9559:http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6832751&type=product&id=1093468058401

 

[Elbatrop1]

The 9550 is a better card, regardless of what slot you put it in.

Also, I would avoid buying vid cards at retail places like Best Buy, because they mark them up A LOT.

I suggest ordering from a place like www.newegg.com

Here is the 9550 for less than half the price of Best Buy:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102392

I would suggest thinking about the 9600Pro. The 9600Pro is a really good buy in that price range ($40-$60):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102409

 

[talldude123]

Also, I would avoid buying vid cards at retail places like Best Buy, because they mark them up A LOT.

I agree. I'm planning on buying a poopload of parts from a locally owned store, since they know me well, and won't rip me off.

Unfortunately, Future Shop/Best Buy, don't care about customers, they care about mark-up, and making the extra dollar.

Make sure to read the rules on profanity

 

[Jorsoft]

The 9550 in 4X is still better than a regular PCI 9250?

Quite a bit better, get the 9550 or a higher end card. Newegg, like the others said too, has much better prices and are extremely reliable. I've ordered thousands of dollars of stuff from them and I am really picky when it comes to buying online. Very good site I always go there first.

 

[Millenniumtiger]

I wasn't going to buy from best buy. i was just using it to show you guys the 2 cards, but thanks for the info for newegg. i had always used tiger direct before now, but neweggs prices are much better.

So can someone please explain what it means when a card reforms back to 4X for me since i seem to be misinterpreting it?

 

[Apokalipse]

I'd suggest an Nvidia 6600 for $85
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143056

it has 8 pixel pipelines, and outclasses all cards mentioned above

AGP 8X cards are backward compatible with 4X, so that if your motherboard doesn't support AGP 8X, you can still use it if you have AGP 4X

basically, this just means the bandwith to the card is not as much. however, even a 6600 won't be hindered much, if at all by the bandwith of AGP 4X against AGP 8X.
1.1GB/S (AGP 4X bandwith) is enough for a card with 8 pixel pipelines
2.2GB/S (AGP 8X bandwith) is enough for a 16 pixel pipeline card

after that, there's PCI-E 16X (16GB/S) which gives lots of headroom, but the most pixel pipelines in a video card so far is 24