hi guys, well i did some research looking for a decent inexpensive card and i'm stuck between agp and pci, there is a lot of agps out there, what sucks is my motherboard doesnt have agp slot (i know i know-ancient- its a 500mhz amd) in any case, is there a performance difference between the two? and one other thing, i was looking at some of these cards and some say theyre dual head but have a regular vga and the digital flatpanel connector. How do i run two vgas??? is there a Y split cable that i use or do i need to have one with vga connector and one with digital conector? thnx for help guys/
janko, i'm stuck between agp and pci...is there a performance difference between the two? I'm sure the engineers could prove that AGP is superior but I've used many PCI and AGP cards over the last few years and I can't see any difference for normal business applications. I suspect that AGP would be the way to go for 3-D gaming, but since that's not important to me it wouldn't matter whether I got a PCI or AGP card as long as it was a good one. some say theyre dual head but have a regular vga and the digital flatpanel connector. How do i run two vgas??? The ATI Radeon VE is configured that way, and if you buy the boxed version it comes with an adapter that plugs into the DVI port and has standard VGA on the other end. That way you can run 2 VGA's, and if you later get a flat-panel simply unplug the adapter.
janko, The AGP slot provides throughput that is at least 2 times greater than that of the PCI slot. Therefore there is absolutely no doubt that an AGP card would be a superior choice. In reality though, the difference would be not too significant under standard business applications as their not very graphic intensive. In your situation it definitely does not make a ny sense to upgrade your computer just for the sake of having an AGP slot. As for connecting 2 VGAs, just as Magna pointed out , the manufactures will normally supply an additional connector that would allow you to connect a 15-pin cable to the DVI connector. Hope that helps, IRAF
thnx guys, i guess i need to decide if i should upgrade system or not. i bought 512mb of ram high denisty ram and as it turns out my machine will only read it as 128, so that kind of sucks, and i dont know which motherboard supports that kind of memory -its generic type- i know i know>>> so i dont know if i should just buy a basic 8mb video card and leave it for now or spend a few hundred dollars and upgrade the machine- tough choice. but thnx guys for your help. appreciate it >>>
I don't know how many pci slots you have but i'm using individual pci cards for each monitor and they cost like $30 apiece. Stock data is not very graphic intensive. You don't need anything fancy unless you use it for other things. I use a separate computer for video, surfing, etc.
Stock data is not very graphic intensive. Data is not, but I've always been curious about charts. Obviously they are graphics, but do they use the memory of your vid card or your main ram, or both? People at Cyber tell me that to have multiple charts open I should have a vid card with 32mb of mem. Makes sense in a way, but frankly I don't trust the technical knowledge of their customer support people as they've been wrong too many times. Anybody know for certain?
Can't answer your question about ram. These cards have 8mb built in and I've had a dozen charts on a monitor with no problems. Don't know if that qualifies as a lot.
janko, Why don't you get the right kind of memory and send back what you have? There isn't a machine on this Earth that won't accept more memory if you got the PCI slots. GET THE RIGHT MEMORY! LOOK AT WHATS IN THE MACHINE AND ORDER THE RIGHT KIND. Multiple monitors need lots of memory to run effeciently and it's real cheap these days. What are you waiting for...GO order it NOW!
Hey doog, yeah i thougth about it but damn it i bought it so long ago that i dont even know where i bought it, it was like 40 bucks or something. i have 256 right now with it, but i might as well get a motherboard that supports it, get a faster chip and get an agp slot right along with it. it just may be worth it. its pretty cheap now a days. i just have to find a mother board that supports that much memory, 512 per slot. I'll porbably jsut end up doing that. any good place on the web to buy a motherboard cpu combo? i checked price watch there is a bunch of co's. i guess i'm looking for something people have good experience with./ thnx guys
Janko Ive had pretty good luck with ecompshopper.com. A couple of months ago I picked up an ASUS motherboard and an 850mhz Thunderbird for about $225. I think it will support a gig and a half memory. Got it in a couple of days.