Technical questions...

[bigdogshark62]

Hokay... So, I'm in the process of getting a new desktop puter, as my old one was fried by a power surge (right through the breaker strip). I had just upgraded the old thing with a new 256 meg nVidia 5600 card and 1 GB of memory.

The new puters are advertising nVidia 128 meg 6100 cards and 512 meg DDR2 memory.

Sooooooo... Is the 6100 card with 128 meg better than the 5600 with the 256 meg?

And will I be able to use my 1 GB SDRAM with the DDR memory?

I spent a boatload of $$$ to upgrade, and now everything is buggered. I want to fly again!

Thanks for any answers you can provide!

Rob D.

[HardCorePawn]

Rob,

you may want to double check whether that actually is a physical card, or onboard video. I am in the process of getting a new machine myself, and noticed that one of the new nForce chipset motherboards has onboard nVidia 6100 video. This may also mean that it might not have an AGP or PCIe slot which would mean you can not upgrade the video later on.

Indeed, a quick google seems to indicate that the 6100 is an integrated (onboard) GPU, so I would probably say you would be better off looking at another system. But I have never been a fan of integrated video.

As for the RAM, it depends what mobo/CPU you are going to get. If the board is a new DDR2 one, then chances are that your old RAM (I am assuming its just DDR) will not physically fit, let alone work, as the ram slots are a different 'size/shape' (eg. notches in a different place)

Do you have a link to an online store/system that you are looking at getting? Or can you paste the full specs of the current & new system and then i'll have a better idea.

What sort of budget do you have?

cheers,
Jared

[bigdogshark62]

Hello Jared!

Since my last post I've done a lot of research, and have found that it is onboard video. Actually adjusted my thinking a little bit and found a system that does a lot more for a little more money, so am now looking in that direction.

Still, nVidia 6150 integrated video with 256 meg capability, AMD 64 x2, 2 gig DDR2, 320 gig SATA HD, all that jazz. Plenty of PCI and PCI-Express slots open. No AGP, though. Might buy an adapter for that.

Purchasing this in the US (where I currently live), so the prices are a little different to the NZ scene. Looking at about US$775 for the system, probably from Best Buy (bestbuy.com) or CompUSA (compusa.com). Don't need a monitor or printer. Got nice pieces for that.

So, can't use the 1 gig SDRAM. Bugger. Still, would I be better off using the PCI nVidia 5600 with 256 megs over the onboard nVidia 6150 with 256 megs?

Thanks!

Rob D.

[Muppet]

Hi Rob,

As you are shopping in the US, I suggest you have a wee look at http://www.newegg.com Have only heard excellent things of them and their prices are great too.

[bigdogshark62]

Thanks Scott. Will take a look.

Rob D.

[Zöltuger]

i'm assuming that the 5600 is an AGP card, so it won't work on the new motherboard. you can get adapters, but its probably not worth the extra cost- if the new system has PCI-e 16x slot, i'd be inclined to use the onboard video and upgrade later to maybe a nvidia 7600GT or 7600GS.
but in terms of power, i'd say the 5600 would be more powerful.

[HardCorePawn]

Getting an AGP to PCIe adapter is not worth it. You will probably find that you can get a decent PCIe card quite cheap... newegg.com have 7600GT's for around US$150. AGP is effectively dead. Even a 6600GT or a 6800GT would be OK. A PCIe 6600GT on newegg is around US$100.

Its hard to tell if you'd be better off with 5600 or 6100... looking at the benchmarking I can find, the FX5600 did not even outperform the Geforce 4 Ti4X00 series... the only advantage it had was that it supported DX9.

It is certainly worse than the 6600 or 6800 series cards.

But the 6100 is integrated, and I cannot really find any benchmarks for them except for this

You have to scroll about halfway down to see the actual benchmarks for the integrated graphics, the top ones are for a PCIe 6600GT card. So you may be able to compare the 6100 to the 6600 (and see that the 6600GT wins hands down eg Comanche 4 1024x768: 6600GT = 70fps, 6100/6150 = 30fps)...

Personally, I would ditch the FX5600 (adapters are never worth the hassle) and get a nice PCIe card like a 6600GT or a 7600GT.

Alternatively, you could 'live' with the integrated graphics until the new DirectX 10 cards come out


cheers,
HCP

[bigdogshark62]

Thanks guys!

Will probably skip the adapter and just live with the onboard graphics until I can find something that suits my system (and works well with Vista).

I appreciate all the help, everyone!

Rob D.

[Bandit]

Well timed advice. Thanks for asking Rob D.

You guys have answered some of what I was also wondering about.

I'm currently looking at the exact same thing for my upgrade.
Currently looking at -
AMD Athlon 3500+ AM2
Foxconn AM2 PCIe
1Gb DDR2-533 RAM

Guy at the shop said the on board 6100 was OK but a seperate Card would be better. He recommended if I could get by with the 6100 till the DirectX 10 cards come out that would be the way to go. Also gives me time to get some more $$$ saved.

So HCP you have confirmed that. Cheers.

[HardCorePawn]

no worries...

i can't wait... but it helps that I am going to Hong Kong tomorrow... and with the dollar firming up a little, hopefully I should be able to find some good deals on some components...

just wish I could splash out on the Geforce 7950 dual GPU card that a friend of mine is getting... its $1200 just for the card!!!! but is DX10 compatible... and apparently you can hack SLI with it... so you can actually get QUAD GPU's!! OMG...

anyway, I am looking at:

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2
Corsair 1gig (2x 512Meg) DDR2 800 (dual channel)
Geforce 7600GT 256Meg vid card
250Gig Sata HDD
AM2 Mobo of some description (to be decided, its so confusing these days)
spanky new case and a 535W Enermax Whisper 2 PSU

aiming for around $1200 all up... might have to ditch the SATA HDD and live with my IDE ones for a little longer tho...

just wish i could find another couple of $$$ for some 17" or 19" LCDs B)

[Zöltuger]

just wish I could splash out on the Geforce 7950 dual GPU card that a friend of mine is getting... its $1200 just for the card!!!! but is DX10 compatible...

DX10 compatible, but it won't have hardware DX10 support.
still, if i won lotto... intel core 2 duo extreme ($2000), dual geforce 7950 cards ($1000 each), maybe 8GB of memory ($2000)
mmmmmmm