Slashdot Mirror
Value (Price/Quality) for Computer Upgrades?
Sierpinski asks: "I am currently researching a new video card, and seeing that PCI-Express has pretty much taken the industry by storm, I have not been able to find a relatively recent (late-model so to speak) AGP card. If I get a PCI-Express card, I'll need to upgrade my board. If I upgrade my board, I doubt my CPU (slot 462) will still be usable. As much as price is a factor, compatibility is as well. I've run into problems in the past where X memory wouldn't work in Y boards, etc. Does anyone have a spec list of the main components (board, CPU, memory, video card) that are recent (ie 6800GT PCI-Express), and work well together?"
I'm very comfortable spec'ing the rest of a system, but I can't seem to keep up with the video market - maybe because I'm not a gamer. The last system I built I bought a $50 Nvidia card in the hopes that it would be better/faster than the cheap on-board video I've used before. I could not get the Nvidia drivers to work right in FC3 or FC4, despite reading howtos and forum postings for hours. Finally, I decided I would just use it in the regular mode that FC4 had built in drivers for. Needless to say, I see no benefit for the moeny I spent, so that will be the last Nvidia-based video I pay extra for, if they open-source their drivers and get in included in major distributions, I will buy more of their product, but not until then. I understand they want to protect their IP, but that doesn't get me an easily installed 3D video card, so I won't send them my money.