New Video Card for P4ITA

[masif]

I have friend who is having video card problems. He has ATI Radeon AGP 64 on a ECS P4ITA board I believe. I built his computer few years back. I have been out of touch with whats out there now and whats compaitible with the board. I started looking at whats available on newegg but there are many and I am not sure what to get. He uses the machine for business only and need not to spend unnecessary money. Any help would be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Steve R Jones]

You need to look up the specs of the mobo and see what it'll take. 1x, or 2x or 4x or 8x.....

[masif]

I looked up in the manual. It says its a 4xAGP slot under VGA section.

Under the chipset section, it says the following:

AGP controller is AGP 2.0 compliant and supports
2x/4x Fast Write Protocol (1.5V only)

[lgbpop]

This would do fine, if all he uses the computer for is business and occasional light gaming (everyone tries for the heck of it, sooner or later ). Get any less card and you won't save much money; get more card and the price goes up in a hurry. I've used one of these for almost two years, they're stable and reliable. Good all-around card, good bang for the buck.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131014

[masif]

This would do fine, if all he uses the computer for is business and occasional light gaming (everyone tries for the heck of it, sooner or later ). Get any less card and you won't save much money; get more card and the price goes up in a hurry. I've used one of these for almost two years, they're stable and reliable. Good all-around card, good bang for the buck.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131014

So this should work even though it says "AGP 4X/8X" in the specs? The specs for the AGP controller in the manual says AGP controller is AGP 2.0 compliant and supports 2x/4x Fast Write Protocol (1.5V only)

[SuperSparks]

Yep, it will be fine, 4x/8x cards are backwards compatible.

[lgbpop]

I certainly wouldn't spend any more than that for that system. Socket 423 is older stuff now anyhow. Getting less than this card, though, will run you into the law of diminishing returns - the prices level off at around $35 but the cards keep getting wimpier.

If you decide against the FX5500, avoid the FX5200 at all costs. You'd regret the day you thought of buying it.

[masif]

This friend of mine has asked me to go ahead and buy any appropriate AGP video card for his old computer. The only question I have is that the System Memory on his computer is only 256 MB (RDRAM). This type of memory is very expensive and hard to find. He doesn't really have any performance issues other than the recent video card problems anyway so he is not looking to upgrade his RAM. My question is, if I a buy a 256MB video card for him as suggsted in this thread, is this going to be too much for the system to handle? Should I buy a 128 MB card instead?

Thanks in advance

[lgbpop]

I'll defer to someone more knowledgeable but I'd think with only 256MB of RAM, the card with the greater memory would be better.

As far as RAMBUS memory - unless you're looking at PC1066 2x512 or similar, it really isn't all that expensive if you shop around. I've bought it on eBay several times and haven't had a problem. It really depends on what OS your friend has on that computer.

[Steve R Jones]

RDRAM MUST be installed in pairs...

[lgbpop]

PC1066 2x512 or similar

He built the computer, so I figured he didn't need to be reminded.