Name: Dan8989 Date: October 27, 2007 at 10:02:29 Pacific Subject: PCI or AGP? OS: Vista Home Basic CPU/Ram: Celeron D 3.46 GHz Model/Manufacturer: Compaq Presario
Comment:
I have a fairly new Compaq Presario Desktop that was purchased in June. It was pretty cheap, like 300 dollars after rebate or something. I'm trying to figure out what type of video card it uses, PCI or AGP. The current video card is Intel 945G express family chipset.(It sucks) I have a feeling it's PCI. But I'm not sure, can anyone help me? Also, if it is PCI, can anyone recommend a good vid card to buy? I'm just looking for something that is pretty decent and will handle most games just fine.
The 945 is a PCI-Express chipset, though that doesn't necessarily mean that the board has a PCI-E slot.
The easiest way to find out if your board is PCI-only or PCI-E (it will not be AGP), is to type your Presario model number into Google.
Or you could open the chassis and take a look yourself. The standard PCI slots will be the white-colored ones. The PCI-E slot, if there is one, will be black or blue (but not both, hee hee).
If you only have PCI, it would be best to just stick with your onboard i945 GMA950 graphics. There's not much point in 'upgrading' to a PCI video card. Think of it this way: some hard drives are able to exceed PCI's limit of 133MB/sec while 'bursting.' Surely, that would bottleneck a GPU like crazy. A modern integrated solution is nearly as fast (if not just as fast) as a PCI card.
If you have PCI-E, you're lucky, because this is the newest bus in town (better than AGP). If you have this type of slot, tell us what you're willing to spend on a video card.
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
After thinking about it, I think the better choice would be to just buy a new comp. Cause if my current comp isn't PCI-E, then I might as well just buy a new one. I have the money too, so why not. I was thinking something like in that link, but it might be overkill.
That's ridiculous. You're gonna spend $1000+ for an OEM PC just because you don't know what upgrade slots you have available on your current one? Did you try researching the model number at HP.com? Post the model number & someone will dig up the specs for you. I'll take a stab at it & guess that it's something in the SR5000 series?
The Gateway you chose has an 8500GT which is a weak video card so if you're thinking about gaming with it, you're STILL gonna have to buy a new video card...that'll add another $150-200.
That Gateway was just a suggestion(the specs I thought were pretty impressive for the price, I don't know though), and I'm still going to crack open my comp and find out what slots I have, but if it's PCI, then I might as well go ahead and buy a new comp cause I've been wanting to do so for a while. Honestly, if I bought a new comp the least I would want is 160 gig HD, Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or up, 2 gigs of ram, and as for a vid card, I don't know. GeForce 8800 GTS? Probably too expenisve. I don't need a top of the line vid card, but I want something that will handle any game, but not necessarily at the highest settings. I pulled that one off the Crysis recommended settings heh. So how much would I be paying for a system like that do you think?
When shopping for an "OEM" gaming machine .... it is best to focus more on the high end series.
Buying a clearance model will end up costing you far more than you bargained for & odds are, you'll still be disappointed with the overall outcome of your gaming configuration.
I found a 550 watt for only $40. I'm planning on buying that, a gig of ram for another $40. And some dude offered me a Sapphire X1950GT in exchange for Windows Vista Ultimate(which I've been trying to sell, got it for free) Think I should do it?
No you need atleast a 650w SLI ready type of PSU to be comfortable when dealing with that highend card. That card is really power hungry. As for Power Up, they are ok when dealing with avg pc's but not for gaming pc's. I wouldn't trust it to handle a card like that. If you are going to buy a highend card buy a good power supply. Don't cheap out on the power supply or else you will suffer for it. A lot of people buy these nice graphics cards and fail to buy a good power supply to go along with it and then they wonder why their pc restarts or shuts down it self for no reason or hardware shorts out due to lack of proper current flow.
I wouldn't buy from tiger direct either. Too many bad stories from users with their service department. I bought a couple things from tiger direct before and it wasn't the best by any means. I go to newegg.com, because they are good if not great all the way around.
So does anybody know if that Sapphire X1950GT is worth trading? It looks like a pretty solid card. It doesn't support DX10, which is why I was thinking about getting the 8800 GTS so I would have something that's future proof, but I don't know if that's really necessary right now.
Even the 8800GTS isn't future proof, because it doesn't support the up and coming directX 10.1. The new nvidia graphics cards set to be released really soon will support DirectX 10.1.
I dislike that term...there is no such thing as futureproof.
The retail version of Vista Ultimate (32-bit) sells for $320, the "System Builders" version sells for $180. A new X1950GT sells for about $120...I assume the one you'd be getting is used? It's not a bad card, but I think your friend would definitely be getting the better end of the deal.
