So you only have PCI slots and want to game?

[TechnoFill]

Boring posts

just buy a new motherboard

Just don't post other advise!

AGP's owner will tell you the same thing. If you want to change every year your hardware, there are many forums for this. For me there is no glory but it's my opinion.
you can see that here, lot of people has a second PC with PCI-Ex slot...

 

[r3claimer]

just buy a new motherboard

Yeah, not to mention how easy you make that sound. If you have a computer thats still using PCI-E x1 or PCI slots, chances are your computer is pretty old, or just isn't very good. Since one of these is probably the case for most people here, why go to the trouble of buying a new motherboard for a computer that is obsolete in other ways? also, most new motherboards might not support everything else in your computer. If that is the case, then you would have to buy yet more parts for your computer. It would be easier just to buy a new computer. And finally we've had several thousand ideas on this thread already. And if you look at the title, it says "So you only have PCI slots and want to game?" Notice it doesnt say,
"How to replace practically everything instead of looking for a solution."

 

[teklord]

Yeah, not to mention how easy you make that sound. If you have a computer thats still using PCI-E x1 or PCI slots, chances are your computer is pretty old, or just isn't very good. Since one of these is probably the case for most people here, why go to the trouble of buying a new motherboard for a computer that is obsolete in other ways? also, most new motherboards might not support everything else in your computer. If that is the case, then you would have to buy yet more parts for your computer. It would be easier just to buy a new computer. And finally we've had several thousand ideas on this thread already. And if you look at the title, it says "So you only have PCI slots and want to game?" Notice it doesnt say,
"How to replace practically everything instead of looking for a solution."

Great post. I got my 8500 GT all the way from England today, and I get 7 times the frame rate non-overclocked in ATi Tool over my FX5500. Framerate went from 21 fps to 140 fps in ATi Tool. I got this precisely because I did not want to install a new mobo and other necessary parts at this time. I plan on building a PC from scratch later, but for now, this is the best solution for me.

Plan on playing some games on full settings eventually with this baby, but nothing can play Crysis on full settings @ 60 fps at the moment BTW including this card. I may go for Oblivion on full settings if I get a new power supply for my PC and I overclock my card, CPU, and memory. If you are serious about gaming and want to stick with your PCI bus, go for the 8500 GT, you won't be disappointed and it's better than everything here in America.

 

[teklord]

Thats great news direwolf. Have fun with your new video card, and the best pci card on the market. PCI cards arent the best, but its pretty good and i think pci cards takes less strain on the computer. My 2400 HD PRO PCI card stays at 39c and never goes above 48c when playing games for a long time.

Good to see you upgraded your card General. The 2400 is probably one of the better cards you could have gotten since your PSU is a liability and likely to burn out anything new you install in your PC. For those that are sticking with PCI bus and are willing to spend $150 dollars on a PCI card, I recommend the 8500 GT, all the way from England. For those that don't wan't to spend quite so much, there is the x1550 Diamond version, which is probably the second most powerful card, and is also the second most expensive after the 8500 GT.

You and me both should upgrade our PSU's General, yours so you can count on your new hardware not dying. Mine, so I can overclock through the yin-yangs and get unheard of PCI performance benchmarks. Remember to upgrade to the largest PSU possible, so you can run your card as fast as possible and not have it burn out (I fried my FX5500 testing it with ATi Tool finding Max Mem speed. It wouldn't shut off like it was supposed to and ran all night running several times the speed it was supposed to.)

 

[jives11]

I completely agree that you need a PSU that is capable of supplying the various rails (+5, +12, vcore) at sufficient current, but having an inadequate PSU doesn't cause components to burn out. Your fried 5500 was probably due to overheat from prolonged OC'ing it. An inadequate PSU may cause a BSOD ,random reboots, vanishing devices and random errors, but it shouldn't damage components

 

[teklord]

I completely agree that you need a PSU that is capable of supplying the various rails (+5, +12, vcore) at sufficient current, but having an inadequate PSU doesn't cause components to burn out. Your fried 5500 was probably due to overheat from prolonged OC'ing it. An inadequate PSU may cause a BSOD ,random reboots, vanishing devices and random errors, but it shouldn't damage components

I didn't OC it for very long and I stopped before artifacts appeared in the ATi Tool test. I had it for a week or two before I fried it and I didn't use it that terribly much for gaming or anything. Moral of the story is, OC'ing uses more resources and OC'ing like I did on that test so high for so long obviously contributed greatly to damaging my card. I won't OC my 8500 GT until I get a much bigger power supply, biggest I can get my hands on, then I'll OC it to be a 8800 or somthing.

 

[PSO Gamer]

Hello, I haven't been here in awhile. Just wondering if there are any better PCI cards available for my PC since the last time I was here. I currently have a Diamond Radeon X1550 Series.

Any better cards out now? If so, is it that much better than my current card?(is it worth getting the new card)

Thanks.

 

[Tha General]

Hello, I haven't been here in awhile. Just wondering if there are any better PCI cards available for my PC since the last time I was here. I currently have a Diamond Radeon X1550 Series.

Any better cards out now? If so, is it that much better than my current card?(is it worth getting the new card)

Thanks.

If you have a Diamond Stealth X1550 that is already a powerful card, plus it has a 128BIT inferface. I think you could try out a 2400 HD Pro PCI card, i will do some serious testing tho with games.

Alright just want to say a few things:

About my PSU, 90watts

I have had this computer for over 5 years i believe, maybe 6. And my PSU still blows out very cool air. Room temps are very important, if the room is cool, my tower is cool. And i use 2 programs to keep an eye on how my GPU is. It pretty much stays at between 39c, to 44c, or 50c. I have use plenty of hardware and bought many stuff for this computer. This gateway computer was built with perfection and everything has been working just like i bought it from day one.

The items which i have install on this rig and use

I bought 2 sticks of ram, for a total of 512MB, one stick is dell (256 ) and the other one gateway (256mb )
Soundblaster Card, with EAX features.

I bought and use a Radeon 700064MB PCI card, a Radeon 9250 256MB PCI card, a FX5200 card, a FX5500 card, a BFG 6200 card, a Evga 6200 card and now i am using a 2400 HD Pro Radeon 256MB PCI card, which is the best. Neither one of those cards takes a strain on your computer, because all of those cards only needs 50 or 30watts.

I also upgraded from 20GB to 80GB WD Internal HD
I'm using a High Speed 2.0 Hub
500GB My book edtion external HD

As you can see i have use plenty of stuff on this computer, the 90watts PSU is made for this computer and really the things which i am using doesn't strain my computer like people think.

My PSU unit

I cant upgrade to a higher PSU because my tower is not small, but its not big either. I think i can only use 90's PSU's. I bought a second 90PSU, just in case the one i am using now dies on me, but that is not possible anytime soon

About using PCI slots

Well first things first, PCI cards are not the best obvious, but they do get the job done with certain stuff and games. I think PCI cards are amazing. Yea i could of bought a more powerful computer years ago, but i have been using this computer for years, no problems, so why get rid of it? PCI slots are for gaming, and even tho not AGP OR pci-e, they do get the job done to some degree

From Win9x to XP

This computer ship with windows98se, and on march 22 i finally did upgrade to XP. And not only is my computer faster, but everything is more smooth. And again, using xp doesn't take a strain on my computer at all really.

My last upgrade to this computer

I do plan on upgrading from 512MB to 1gb SOON

My Next big buy

Well this computer with the PCI slots is my first computer and i use it for everything. I do plan on buying a secondary computer tho, to enjoy the newer games , so everything is cool !

 

[jives11]

I didn't OC it for very long and I stopped before artifacts appeared in the ATi Tool test. I had it for a week or two before I fried it and I didn't use it that terribly much for gaming or anything. Moral of the story is, OC'ing uses more resources and OC'ing like I did on that test so high for so long obviously contributed greatly to damaging my card. I won't OC my 8500 GT until I get a much bigger power supply, biggest I can get my hands on, then I'll OC it to be a 8800 or somthing.

I'm thinking along similar lines and invested in some extra cooling too. While the heatsink on the 8500GT is huge, it may be in a part of the case which doesn't get that much airflow . I ended up with one of these :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AZEN-BT-SC7...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1208241986&sr=8-1

Antec also do a couple of good blowers (The Vcool is good) but they take 2 PCI slots, and I only had 3 in total and the 8500GT takes up 2.

 

[teklord]

I'm thinking along similar lines and invested in some extra cooling too. While the heatsink on the 8500GT is huge, it may be in a part of the case which doesn't get that much airflow . I ended up with one of these :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AZEN-BT-SC7...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1208241986&sr=8-1

Antec also do a couple of good blowers (The Vcool is good) but they take 2 PCI slots, and I only had 3 in total and the 8500GT takes up 2.

The heatsink being huge on the 8500 GT is an understatement to say the least. That thing should do a half decent job defusing the heat from the GPU, even with poor airflow. I agree, keeping your card cool is very important, especially when OC'ing. It seems difficult to me to attach a fan or cooler unit to that thing when It already takes 2 slots and I haven't even installed my sound card yet.

Like you, I only have 3 PCI slots(1 AGP slot on the mobo with no connector soldered on.), so there is no room for error there. I hope to tap into the potential of my GPU, CPU, & mem soon through OC'ing, but I want to be responsible as I have already learned that lesson the hard way.

 

[teklord]

If you have a Diamond Stealth X1550 that is already a powerful card, plus it has a 128BIT inferface. I think you could try out a 2400 HD Pro PCI card, i will do some serious testing tho with games.

Alright just want to say a few things:

About my PSU, 90watts

I have had this computer for over 5 years i believe, maybe 6. And my PSU still blows out very cool air. Room temps are very important, if the room is cool, my tower is cool. And i use 2 programs to keep an eye on how my GPU is. It pretty much stays at between 39c, to 44c, or 50c. I have use plenty of hardware and bought many stuff for this computer. This gateway computer was built with perfection and everything has been working just like i bought it from day one.

The items which i have install on this rig and use

I bought 2 sticks of ram, for a total of 512MB, one stick is dell (256 ) and the other one gateway (256mb )
Soundblaster Card, with EAX features.

I bought and use a Radeon 700064MB PCI card, a Radeon 9250 256MB PCI card, a FX5200 card, a FX5500 card, a BFG 6200 card, a Evga 6200 card and now i am u[/B]sing a 2400 HD Pro Radeon 256MB PCI card, which is the best. Neither one of those cards takes a strain on your computer, because all of those cards only needs 50 or 30watts.

I also upgraded from 20GB to 80GB WD Internal HD
I'm using a High Speed 2.0 Hub
500GB My book edtion external HD

As you can see i have use plenty of stuff on this computer, the 90watts PSU is made for this computer and really the things which i am using doesn't strain my computer like people think.

My PSU unit

I cant upgrade to a higher PSU because my tower is not small, but its not big either. I think i can only use 90's PSU's. I bought a second 90PSU, just in case the one i am using now dies on me, but that is not possible anytime soon

About using PCI slots

Well first things first, PCI cards are not the best obvious, but they do get the job done with certain stuff and games. I think PCI cards are amazing. Yea i could of bought a more powerful computer years ago, but i have been using this computer for years, no problems, so why get rid of it? PCI slots are for gaming, and even tho not AGP OR pci-e, they do get the job done to some degree

From Win9x to XP

This computer ship with windows98se, and on march 22 i finally did upgrade to XP. And not only is my computer faster, but everything is more smooth. And again, using xp doesn't take a strain on my computer at all really.

My last upgrade to this computer

I do plan on upgrading from 512MB to 1gb SOON

My Next big buy

Well this computer with the PCI slots is my first computer and i use it for everything. I do plan on buying a secondary computer tho, to enjoy the newer games , so everything is cool !

You are stretching that antiquated machine as far as it will go. Nothing wrong with that, but you should be aware of it's limitations in relation to your gaming needs. I would go to crucial.com to know exactly how much RAM your system will take, 512MB may be the max on that old machine. I put 2 GB in mine, only to have the system not recognize it. I had to do a Google search to come across the Crucial site I found in a thread similar to this one. My PC manufacturer's website states close to the same as Crucial, but Crucial is more accurate I believe and stated I could get more powerful memory to work, and it does as opposed to the manufacturers claims on memory capacity.

Diamond Stealth x1550 card is probably more powerful IMO, but not a huge leap over your 2400 PRO. Reason being is that the x1550 Diamond is 128 bit, which makes a huge difference in data transfer rates. I can't wait to build my own PC one day, saving a lot of money in the process and future proofing economically for a few years (not to mention finally getting some PCI-e slots as well.)

 

[teklord]

Hello, I haven't been here in awhile. Just wondering if there are any better PCI cards available for my PC since the last time I was here. I currently have a Diamond Radeon X1550 Series.

Any better cards out now? If so, is it that much better than my current card?(is it worth getting the new card)

Thanks.

Diamond Radeon x1550 is the best there is in America. There is better, but you have to order it from England (the 8500 GT PCI is what I have and I ordered that from England). 8500 GT is the best PCI card bar none, but still pales in comparison to PCI-e cards at the same price. This card eats my FX5500 for breakfast and I can't recommend it enough. Got mine off of eBay from a guy named Advanced Data Systems. Best price I could find.

 

[jives11]

The heatsink being huge on the 8500 GT is an understatement to say the least. That thing should do a half decent job defusing the heat from the GPU, even with poor airflow. I agree, keeping your card cool is very important, especially when OC'ing. It seems difficult to me to attach a fan or cooler unit to that thing when It already takes 2 slots and I haven't even installed my sound card yet.

Like you, I only have 3 PCI slots(1 AGP slot on the mobo with no connector soldered on.), so there is no room for error there. I hope to tap into the potential of my GPU, CPU, & mem soon through OC'ing, but I want to be responsible as I have already learned that lesson the hard way.

I have seen some fans for PCI which fit across the sides of the card. A bit hard to explain but they attached parallel to the mobo and are held in place by the screws holding the cards in place like this

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29335&criteria=card fan&doy=15m4

If your case is deep enough they could force some airflow across your GPU/Sound cards. Also I strongly recommend speedfan which can report the core temperature of most PCI graphics cards I have seen

 

[jives11]

From Win9x to XP

This computer ship with windows98se, and on march 22 i finally did upgrade to XP. And not only is my computer faster, but everything is more smooth. And again, using xp doesn't take a strain on my computer at all really.

My last upgrade to this computer

I do plan on upgrading from 512MB to 1gb SOON

My machine a a little newer but not much. Apologies if you already do this, but it's well worth going through all the services and assorted startup programs to pare these down to the minimum. After boot, login and wait 2 minutes , then in Task Manager see whats running. I have 18 processes running. I have seen "vanilla" XP PC's where it's >60. I made a decision to only run a manual AVG check as and when. I don't run the AVG shell extension and resident stuff, and it's behind a router firewall, so no firewall either. If I had more resource I wouldn't go that far, but it all helps the FPS.

Also worth checking that IRQ's are evenly distributed i.e no intensive devices are sharing (GPU, Soundcard, LAN).

I also disabled in the BIOS & removed everything I didn't need (floppy, serial & parallel ports, modem) which helps the UPnP service to deal the IRQ's more evenly. Also might save you a few watts.

 

[godson]

Uhm...Would a Diamond x1550 be able to handle a 410watt psu?

 

[Tha General]

The Diamond X1500 only requires a little bit of PSU power. So yea that will be fine.

Btw, does anyone know if the Diamond version of the 2400 card is faster then the Visiontek one:

http://www.diamondmm.com/2400PCI256.php

 

[teklord]

The Diamond X1500 only requires a little bit of PSU power. So yea that will be fine.

Btw, does anyone know if the Diamond version of the 2400 card is faster then the Visiontek one:

http://www.diamondmm.com/2400PCI256.php

They're both 64 bit, so the answer is no, they are about the same in speed. The Diamond Stealth x1550 has listed PSU requirements of 420 watts. It may not actually use that much, but I wouldn't chance it if I were you. I would get a Diamond x1550 if your heart is set on PCI and you want the best in America. You may be able to find one around $100 dollars, not sure what you paid for your Visiontek 2400.

 

[direwolf007]

Considering a Liberty 400W PSU has no issues running an overclocked Q6600 + 8800GT 512Mb, I highly doubt a 400W PSU of any kind will not be able to run the X1550, unless it is a 10$ PSU that will collapse under any real load.

I ran a generic, four-year old, 520W PSU with an overclocked E2160 @ 3.0Ghz + an overclocked HD3850 256Mb with no issues. A 400W or so PSU will run a X1550 just fine, unless it is a really old PSU, or a very poorly constructed one.

 

[teklord]

Wanted to state that the 8500 GT is the best card for PCI bus but you can get a ATi Radeon HD 3870 for that price as well on the PCI-e bus type, which is far and away more powerful. I got this card to play games that were released up until HL2 - Oblivion and not past that. I will be completely happy if I can get these games to run at 60 fps on full settings. Check gpureview.com for comparison. Can't wait to build my own PC with all PCI-e slots and save appreciable amounts of money over manufacturer's models.

I may try to dabble with jives11's tips on increasing the framerate. I don't have A+ certification, at least not yet but squeezing the most out of my system definitely appeals to me.

 

[Tha General]

How is the Diamond Stealth X1550 better then the 2400 HD Pro?

I understand the inferface is faster, 128bit really does make a difference, but how does it compare to the specs to the 2400 PRO?

 

[teklord]

How is the Diamond Stealth X1550 better then the 2400 HD Pro?

I understand the inferface is faster, 128bit really does make a difference, but how does it compare to the specs to the 2400 PRO?

The specifications of the 2400 Pro's core is superior to the Diamond Stealth x1550, but you have to factor the 64-bit interface bottlenecking the superior statistic. Besides, the only thing that is superior about the 2400 is price and core clock speed, but because of the 64-bit bus interface, you can divide that in half for a relative assessment of accurate ability. This link will show you what I am talking about.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=561&card2=506


The PCI bus is horribly slow compared to PCI-e or AGP, so the last thing you need is 64-bit bus making that even worse. I am not berating your card, but for me personally, I don't want anything less than 128-bit interface in my GPU.

Now that I've been researching the HD 3870, it really makes me want to build a PC with PCI-e slots, but for now I am content to max my 8500 GT PCI since I am not really die hard serious about gaming right now anywho.

 

[teklord]

BTW, General. Gpureview states the requirements of the 8500 GT are 40W, so you might could get away with installing that in your Gateway, just be real careful about overclocking. I recommend nothing less for PCI gamers, but I know a lot of folks don't want to pay $150 dollars like I did for a PCI video card. To each his own.

 

[Tha General]

Yea the 128bit really does make a big, well huge difference in gaming. I seen that with my 5500 card, which was faster then the 6200 cards, not more powerful but faster.

Now 4 things here:

#1 The 8500 GT card will be the best choice for my computer, but i lived in the united states and its kinda impossible to find. Unless newegg adds the card to its lineup.

#2 I do have another option, there is a place, a computer show that i could go to soon and ask many of the people there to order it for me and get it in for me. Many of the people at this computer place fly from japan etc. So i will check with them soon.

#3 I will try to find the diamond stealth and what i could do is, test the card out with half my games or the important ones and see how does it compare to my 2400 pro.
Its hard to find the diamond stealth card , but i will check around.

#4 Its not hard to find the Visiontek 1550 version, but that card has a 64bit inferface right?

#5 And btw, i'm buying a secondary computer soon, for the newer games, a gateway computer with Vista, and PCI-E slots. So i will have 2 computers, this one to enjoy games that i can play good and my new computer are only for the more powerful games

 

[teklord]

Yea the 128bit really does make a big, well huge difference in gaming. I seen that with my 5500 card, which was faster then the 6200 cards, not more powerful but faster.

Now 4 things here:

#1 The 8500 GT card will be the best choice for my computer, but i lived in the united states and its kinda impossible to find. Unless newegg adds the card to its lineup.

#2 I do have another option, there is a place, a computer show that i could go to soon and ask many of the people there to order it for me and get it in for me. Many of the people at this computer place fly from japan etc. So i will check with them soon.

#3 I will try to find the diamond stealth and what i could do is, test the card out with half my games or the important ones and see how does it compare to my 2400 pro.
Its hard to find the diamond stealth card , but i will check around.

#4 Its not hard to find the Visiontek 1550 version, but that card has a 64bit inferface right?

#5 And btw, i'm buying a secondary computer soon, for the newer games, a gateway computer with Vista, and PCI-E slots. So i will have 2 computers, this one to enjoy games that i can play good and my new computer are only for the more powerful games

#1 It is impossible to find this card in the United States, but I ordered mine off eBay and I order all my electronics off the internet anyways, so it made little difference to me that it came from England.

#2 You could ask your Japanese friends about this card, but the manufacturer is Taiwanese, so they may not know much about this.

#3 You'll most likely find the comparison between the Diamond Stealth x1550 and the 2400 Pro is very similar to the one between the FX5500 and the 6200.

#4 Visiontek is 64-bit interface according to my research.

#5 Best of luck with your new PC, PCI-e slots are the only way to go today for a new PC, so make sure you check the specs of your new rig that it has PCI-e slots and don't get fooled with a Dell or something similar. Building your own PC is cheaper and you can make a more powerful one than what you can buy in-store, but you need to research how to do that properly first, or else you could have an expensive mess on your hands.

 

[Tha General]

If i come across the Diamond Stealth 1550 card or even the 8500 gt card i will buy them and just do some testing to see how much more powerful and faster it is towards
my 2400 HD Pro card.

My games does work better with the 2400 HD pro card tho, i can play games which i couldn't even play using the 6200 or the 5500 which is a plus. So thats pretty good, but as i said if i come across any one of those cards, i will make sure to grab one

peace