Video card questions?

[ingeborgdot]

I am building another machine and want to swap video cards. The newer machine is just for certain things and I want to take the video card I have from my other machine I built in Dec. and put it in my newer machine because my older machine is for more heavy duty things. It is a 7900 GS PCIe and the new board will have PCIe 2.0. Will that work in this board? If so, what would be a good card to use for my board now that is the old standard PCIe under $125? Will the new 2.0 standard work in my board or is it best to look for a card that is of the old standard 1.1? The new card will be running a 24" 1900x1200 monitor.

 

[EXCellR8]

Any PCI-E card will work in any PCI-E slot, 1.1 or 2.0; it doesn't matter if the card is 1.1 or 2.0 either. The difference between the two bus types, or generations, doesn't really come into play unless you're using multiple cards. PCI-E 2.0 allows each card to run at x16 speed while PCI-E 1.1 only allows for x8 speed on each card. This doesn't really affect anyone that is using a single card... so it's not going to matter in your case.

 

[ingeborgdot]

Actually, what would be an upgrade that would even be worth it to upgrade to. Is the 9600 line much of an upgrade to the 7900GS?

 

[EXCellR8]

...Is the 9600 line much of an upgrade to the 7900GS?

Yes

 

[ingeborgdot]

What do these choices look like?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130380

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130377

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130379

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129112

 

[EXCellR8]

Of those choices I would choose the VisionTek HD4850. EVGA makes a decent 9800GT, especially with the Akimbo model, but the Radeon is comparable with a 9800GTX from what I'm told. Since the card is also cheaper than the 9800GTX, making it even more worth it to pick it up. Plus, the 4800 series ATI cards have a whopping 800 stream processors. The cards run kinda hot I guess but that can be fixed easily with some kind of fan hack that I'm told of, not a big deal. Go with the Radeon if you're looking to upgrade.

 

[ingeborgdot]

How important are the stream processors?
The visiontek 4850 has 800 where many of the GTX and + have only 112.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Stream processors, while they impact performance, are not as important as the rest of the specs when considering the performance of the video card as a whole. To give an excellent example, the 8800GT has far fewer stream processors and slower clocks than an HD 3870, but is still far faster than the ATI card.

That being said, the HD 4850 is the best choice out of the cards you listed.