[CG Man]

This card is your best buy if the Series 8 cards don't become available for AGP and upgrading to PCI E is too much an upgrade.

Gainward BLISS 7800GS+ AGP 512MB

SPECS
GPU: GeForce 7800GS
GPU Clockspeed: 450 MHz
Memory: 512MB 1,4ns DDR3
Memory Clockspeed: 1250 MHz
Bus: AGP-8X
Video-Features: Component, S-Video & Composite Out
Connectivity: Dvi + Dvi + Video-Out

[LCD Monitor]

It's an excellent card, but if you can afford to purchase a high-end card then surely you should be looking to upgrade your motherboard, CPU and RAM first?

I know we can't all afford to upgrade, but the speed improvements I've seen since moving to an AMD64 platform with PCI-E and SATA2 is incredible and I recommend that if you can stretch to it, upgrade your CPU/Motherboard/RAM combo first.

[CG Man]

I'm ready for a new cgraphics card but to go PCI E and keeping roughly the same performance it means buying all the listed below components instead of just buying a £230 card that can run todays games at full graphics and smooth FPS.

Motherboard £60
CPU £160
Ram £290
Graphics Card £230

Total £740

My Computer Specs Now

CPU AMD 64 FX-51 2.3 Ghz water cooled
Ram dual channel 4x 512MB ECC DDR 400
Graphics Card Nvidia 6800 GT GPU 430Mhz memory 1100Mhz water cooled
Motherboard Gigabyte AGP X8 socket 940
Sound Card Audigy 2 ZS

I agree if you mean theirs no point buying another AGP if the rest of the spec is way behind but at the mo it's still overkill.

[LCD Monitor]

I'm unsure as to why that comes to £740 but I'll take your word for it - My 2GB of dual channel RAM certainly didn't cost me £290, though perhaps you pay additional for ECC?

My point is that if you have the money, move with the times, and judging by that computer spec you didn't skimp when you purchased/built it :)

It's not sluggish by any stretch so you're alright, my point was more to those chugging along on old Duron's, Celeron's or Athlon XP's who would be better off getting a basic 64Bit system for the same money and seeing improvements in all aspects.

[CG Man]

The price for ram is for 2x 1GB DDR 2 1066Mhz Theirs no point buying slow ram for a fast CPU and I need at least 1.6 GB of ram for the 3D animation I'm working on. If I was still with an AMD XP or Pent 4 you are right. I would wait till the budget is there for a full build rather than spend more on a dying machine. If nvidia brings out the sereies 8 card for agp I will be getting that or stick with what I've got till I feel I've got the moneys worth out of this. It was only a year ago when I baught this comp below spec for rendering my animation. I only chose the motherboard for 3D rendering performance so it is'nt as good for games or 3D modeling as the gaming and working comp above and never thaught of getting one with a PCI E socket.

CPU1 AMD Opteron 246 Troy Core 2Ghz 1MB
CPU2 AMD Opteron 246 Troy Core 2Ghz 1MB
Ram 4X 512MB ECC DDR 400
Motherboard Tyan Thunder K8W S2885 dual 940 sockets 2X 8GB ram sockets for each CPU. AGP slot PCI X slots
graphics card FX5900
Hardrive 120GB

I got the 246 CPUs as they were good value at the time and I wanted to soon replace them with 2x 3Ghz dual cores giving 4 3Ghz cores performance. I think the quad cores will only be for socket F when their out next year. That means I'll have to upgrade the motherboard in the rendering comp too it's like that film The Money Pit.

[dodgyant]

Thanks for this! I was going to buy a whole new computer, but due to the costs, I decided to just upgrade my current one. I was not going to change my motherboard (it is AGP), so I was wondering what the best graphics card would be.

Anyone know prices on this?

[CG Man]

£230 for that card but it's going to fall next month when the Series 8 comes out.

[CG Man]

Forget all what i said about the best the new ATI AGP graphics card is miles better should be out anytime soon its called X1950 pro I'm Nvidia biased and know this beats all for AGP slots its huge adavntage over pre series 8 nvidia cards is it can display hdri graphics and antialising at the same time.