AGP vv PCI express

[Country Boy 13]

I am buying a new video card, AGP, but im wondering if i should wait and get a PCI express one. My computer does not have PCIe but im wondering if i should wait to geta new computer before a new video card. will the AGP be available in new systems?

 

[Otmakus]

I have old AGP card and i plan to buy a new AGP card too. If your AGP based system is a high end one, chance is u won't upgrade ur system anytime soon. So IMO, if u don't have plan to upgrade ur M/B (and ur processor along with it), it's perfectly OK to buy a new AGP card now, rather than wait a year or so and lose the chance to play new games.
And yes, there are decent modern M/Bs with both PCIx and AGP slot.

 

[cyrax]

Since 70% of video card bought today are agp, its still the best and cheapest alternative.

 

[Federelli]

If you wanna be future safe, you should update your motherboard and get a PCI-e card. But it's not necessary at all, at least not nowadays.

 

[Arcanum]

I was just looking at your computer specs in your profile - and you wrote that you have 168MB of RAM, I dont know how thats even possible...

But, if you have 256MB of RAM or less, you should really be considering upgrading your RAM and not the graphics card, and you have a hdd for videoediting - you would really need to upgrade your RAM, you will get a good boost with video editing, than with a new card.

About the AGP vs PCI-E, depends when you are going to buy a new computer...
There are still a lot of AGP cards to buy, but both ATi and nVidia are switching to PCI-E, leaving only low and some mid-range cards available for the AGP.
Really depends how much you're playing new games - for the newest ones you have to upgrade to PCI-E, cause thats the only way to get the high end cards, but I think AGP will hold on for another year or perhaps even two before it becomes abandoned - in that case you could buy a decent AGP card to help you get over these 1-2 years (for the 2y period I'm recommending 6800GT, it aint cheap, but you will be able to enable PS 3.0 in games).

 

[Mirob]

Simple upgrade would be evga 6600gt
Then a psu FSP are okay, and ram. This may work. It SPDs DDR266, 333, and 400.

I'm sure that's just a 4x agp slot. I gess you need DDR.
Looking at $200 for low-mid range video upgrade.

You can play new games with this but a new system with PCI-e may be a better idea.

168mb? Must be onboard video using some.

 

[dady393]

agp rules

Get agp. It runs in most motherboards. Pci-express is only fun if you can have 2 going at once. (twice the price!)

 

[Vigilante]

Not very true.
While SLI can improve your speed by a large margin, AGP is going home. And from what I've been pricing recently for new systems we build, PCI-E video cards are much cheaper then older AGP cards. If you compare the same card built for AGP and PCI-E, the PCI will likely be cheaper, if not by a lot. This was my experience on some ATI cards. Not only that, but I couldn't even FIND a good AGP mobo and card on Newegg. The PCI-E stuff was as much as $150 cheaper!

In other words, pretty soon, if not already, you will pay MORE for an AGP card that performs LESS then a CHEAPER PCI-E card.

My next upgrade will most definitely be PCI-E. Thus new mobo and CPU. But have to pay off the credit card first

 

[Country Boy 13]

768 MB ram

my bad, it was a typo, i have 768 MB of ram, haha, i also had a typo earlier that said Pentium 2 2.00 Ghz. O well. Thanks for all your imput, i think im going to buy an AGP, a nVidia GeForce 6200 or 5500 not sure yet (have to upgrade my power supply first, its only 250 W)

 

[Arcanum]

Between 6200 and 5500 - definately go for the 6200.

But since you're choosing between low budget cards - at least get a 6600 instead of that 6200...
6600 with 256MB costs around 75$ at newegg - shouldnt be too expensive.