i have a abit ic7 motherboard that supports agp video cards.i am looking to upgrade my video cards from a nvidia geforce 5700 ultra, but dont know whether to upgrade my motherboard to a pci express, or just put more money into a better agp video card.

Hello! Welcome to TechSpot!

What CPU do you have now on the IC7?
You'd be spending out for 3 major componants,
1.Motherboard
2.Cpu
3. 1x video card/ 2x video cards.

If you want to be able to upgrade with current technology,
Sli/pci-e and have the funds for it, then by means go for it.
I have an IC7-G with a 6800 gt oc and love it.
I believe nVidia came out with a 7800 thats agp 8x!
You may want to consider it too!
G'Luck

If you have a fast enough CPU/Ram combo then just buy the video card. If not save up a little longer and upgrade them.

i have a intel p4 3.2 and 2 gigs of ram..thanks for your replys

Definately get an AGP card. What is your price range? You can get a good one for $150, but you can get a screaming one for $400.

my range is around 300...SOcRatEs suggested GeForce 7800 GS AGP...that looked pretty sweet..but what are your suggestions?

If you can afford it, that is THE BEST AGP CARD. Almost anyone will agree with that. Blazing fast, super sweet, it will rock you!

Yeah that IC7 board is sweet. I got one with a prescott 3.0e HTT. 2 gigs ram, 2x raptor in Raid 0, 9800pro AGP 128mb. It runs super fast with no overclocking what so ever. PLays any game out there with ease also. That set up you got should be good for awhile, all you really need is that 7800 and a Raid 0 now.

if your going for cheap, get the ATI x700 pro. Works great for the price.

yup

well i think im gonna go with the 7800..any reccomandations on brands..which version..and were to buy it?

BFG is by far the best buy, Lifetime warranty, but prolly the most expensive.
XFX has gotten very good reviews.
You can buy it right here from TechSpot
G'Luck

I was wrong on the BFG 7800

what do you think about this one..its evga but all specs seem better..and only about 10$ more then bfg--thanks so much for your help SOcRatEs

link

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130273

First of all, raid 0 is a waste of money, it barely outperforms the single raptor.

Second, you guys are all the time suggesting nVidia cards in this board, i dont know what exactly is going on here, but ATI cards are better in many situations, and somehow you guys fail to recomend them 100% of the time.

My advice, dont wate money on raid 0, and get either a 6800 gt agp or a x850 xt agp. Do not waste your money on the 7800 overpriced GS. If you don't believe me about the 7800 gs being overpriced do a simple search on google, it can help.

The 7800 is not very much overpriced, and will be worth it in the long run. And the reason we vote for Nvidia is because it's much better than ATI! I have an eVga card, and they have good warrenties. They and XFX are the best to buy from. Get it from Newegg. Good Luck!

Things come and go in waves. A year ago, I was an ATI fan. The 9800 cards in their time where the best then, nvidia was left in the dust for a long time. Even when the X800 line first came out, that was where my money was going. They were the best at the time.

But for me, lately I rarely recommend the ATI cards, as it just seems that recenly nvidia is kicking their ****. At the low-mid end, you are comparing the X800 cards to the 6600GT - 6800Gt cards. With the ATI cards you don't get the pixel shader support. If you look at the benchmarks here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/index.html

and compare the cards, in most cases the nvidia cards are beating out the ATI rivals.

Don't worry. It'll all likely change, and ATI will once again take the upper hand (if they haven't already with that sweet X1900 lineup).

No one can deny nVidias performance lead in the mid range, but somehow they fall in the image quality comparisons. Most people dont look at that.

You should look at reaviews in Beyond3d.com which are much objective than toms hardware. I would never base my decisions on information posted in tom's, and a lot of people share this opinion with me.

On the other hand, right now with the x1900 series, Ati owns the high end, both in speed and image quality, and many say their shader model 3.0 suport is also superior(fast dinamic branching). Lets not forget ATI supports HDR + AA and nVidia does not on current products. What I mean is that your shader support and features argument fails in the new high end and some mid range(x1xx series).

On top of that the flagship gtx 512mb is no where to be find in stock, and when it is they ask outrageous prices for it, so basically nVidia high end is the older GTX, not the 512mb marketing stunt.

That said my argument is not that ATI is better, but that it can be recomended too in many situations, somehow that never happens in this forums.

There is also a need to notice, "visible bang for the buck"
at times it's impossible to see a difference of 40fps & 50fps and
when involved in a game, noticablitly goes down.
If there's a price difference of $50 to $150 between 40 & 50fps,
where would you put your $$, brand loyalty or Buck Bang?

I don't believe in brand loyalty, I believe in being an informed consumer.
Every brand of everything has good and bad models.
The balance of $$ and performance is fractal at best.

Compress,
How can you say a RAID 0 set of Raptors barely out perfroms a single raptor? if you are comparing the 36gb raptors to the new 150 gb raptor then there is a difference, because they ARE DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGIES. If you think there is no performance increase in RAID 0 then you are grosely misinformed. Please prove me wrong and post your links to where I can view a RAID 0 being outperformed by a single hard drive of the same specs, k thanks.

Remember, we are talking about people who are die hard performance freaks. These people want the extra FPS. If you sit here and try to tell me that lag issues are solely a server side or internet connection thing and that FPS only depends on your video card then again, IMO you are misinformed. I see the benefits of RAID 0 every day when I get home and jump on my computer.

THE OP'S COMPUTER IS A SOCKET 478 FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Anything you do to increase access time will be extremely noticeable.

Secondly Compres,
The 7800 OC is 300 on newegg, the x800xt is 300. How is the 7800 more costly?

@ Socrates, 10 Frames Per Second in a FPS game is huge, maybe not so much in an MMORPG

Lastly,
Every review I have read regarding the7800GTX and below, comparing the equivalent ATI Card, ahs the NVIDIA chip winning. Every single review. That's not to say the NVIDIA is winning every benchmark within the review, it's only saying the NVIDIA chipset is winning the majority of the benchmarks within the review. Often the Nvidia is winning by HUGE amounts in certain benchamrks while lacking slightly in the ones it looses. I'd be reluctant to say the x1900 is faster than the EvGA 7800GTX KO 512 MB as well, which are obtainable as I have two.