Re: Advice with onboard Graphics chip set pls

johnplayerblue

Hey!
I've just bought this board http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-detailsInactive.asp?EdpNo=1834316
for a P43.20 prescott cpu and want to get some advice on the onboard graphics, (embedded UniChrome II 3D Graphics with 64M share memory).
I know noting about graphic cards and want to know would this chip run something like Half life 2 for example or am i dreaming? If its a case that i am in fact dreaming what would be a decent card to buy at the right price of course as the board and the cpu are after making a bit of a hole in my budget.
My history of buying graphic cards thus far is not great, first there was the Ati-128 PRO/ULTRA 32MB which was ok at the time and still works fine but then i went a bought a Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 256MB which was at best a waste of money. At the moment i don't think i've made a mistake with this system, i like the board and the cpu from the look of things seems as good as i was gona get at my budget, its second hand but is working fine so the next big step is to try and take advantage of what i have so far and not skimp to much on the card. But anyways any toughts on the graphics chip on this board?
Rgds

uberpixie

johnplayerblue wrote:

Hey!
I've just bought this board http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-detailsInactive.asp?EdpNo=1834316
for a P43.20 prescott cpu and want to get some advice on the onboard graphics, (embedded UniChrome II 3D Graphics with 64M share memory).
I know noting about graphic cards and want to know would this chip run something like Half life 2 for example or am i dreaming? If its a case that i am in fact dreaming what would be a decent card to buy at the right price of course as the board and the cpu are after making a bit of a hole in my budget.
My history of buying graphic cards thus far is not great, first there was the Ati-128 PRO/ULTRA 32MB which was ok at the time and still works fine but then i went a bought a Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 256MB which was at best a waste of money. At the moment i don't think i've made a mistake with this system, i like the board and the cpu from the look of things seems as good as i was gona get at my budget, its second hand but is working fine so the next big step is to try and take advantage of what i have so far and not skimp to much on the card. But anyways any toughts on the graphics chip on this board?
Rgds

You are dreaming. Best bet is to buy a new gfx card.

I can see from the specs you can get an agp card.

Who much money do you want to spend on gfx?

Your choices are fairly limited with agp going off the market.

Prolly something nvidia: a 6800GS/7800GS for around 250-300 quids.

johnplayerblue

WAH?
Agp going off the market? Are you saying that the Agp is going the way of the ISA bus? If so whats next? PCI Express? and again if so would my board be up to PCI Express. I was under the impression that Agp was pretty newish and was gona be here for some time?

andy1249

There are currently 33 AGP graphics cards available from komplett, I played half life 2 on a radeon 9600xt with 256MB of Ram and it played fine on that , you can get one of these off komplett for about 79 euro , if you want to go mid or top of the range , then aim for the X800 ( mid at about 200 euro ) or the 6800 ultra , ( thats mad money at 600 euro ) but you have lots of options here , dont bother looking at anything cheaper than the 9600 though as it wont be much better than what you have already , for your setup , I would recommend the X800 , its a solid card and you should get a couple of years of gaming out of it yet !!

http://www.komplett.ie/k/kl.asp?bn=10413

Cuddlesworth

Agp is dead, pci-express is the way forward. Buy Agp if you want no upgrade path. And on-board graphics are complety unsuited to playing games. Whats your budget for a graphics card?

DemonOfTheFall

Newish isn't a word I'd use to describe AGP.....

We have a 266mhz Pentium 2 downstairs with an AGP slot in it. TNT2... lol.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307919 is quite a powerful card if you want to spend that much.

Otherwise try to find yourself a 2nd hand 9800 Pro from someone, they're going for very little money and play Half Life 2 very reasonably.

johnplayerblue

This is my third build and want to get it right this time, in the past i've always left the graphics as an after tought and then left scratching my head when a game id bought would end back up in the shop, and for that reason i'm not much of a game player, theres a few of us here so Lan play is a kool way to spend a few hours. As for cash, i'm thinking of say, max €200 second hand from say ebay in a few weeks as my rear shocks need replacing, €200 second hand should get me something fairly decent second hand, its a chance i know but from watching some bids there are some deals to be had. I have a few bits here and there that if i can off load could perhaps go some way paying for it but what ever happens i'm gona get it right this time, Graphics wise anyway.

andy1249

In which case , dump the AGP motherboard , get one with PCI express ( no board has both , its either the latest standard or AGP ) , and buy a 6600 pci express for around 200 , thats the best thing to do.

johnplayerblue

My mind has been made up by the link that DemonOfTheFall posted, its within my spending power, i won't be waiting weeks (i tend to buy from US sites)
and as the main board supports Agp x8 and is already on its way, so no PCI Express for me on this build im gona go for the Club3D GeForce 6600GT.
An after tought, when will we see main boards complete with powerfull graphic chipsets without the need for expansion cards or is that a pipe dream?

8T8

johnplayerblue wrote:

My mind has been made up by the link that DemonOfTheFall posted, its within my spending power, i won't be waiting weeks (i tend to buy from US sites)
and as the main board supports Agp x8 and is already on its way, so no PCI Express for me on this build im gona go for the Club3D GeForce 6600GT.
An after tought, when will we see main boards complete with powerfull graphic chipsets without the need for expansion cards or is that a pipe dream?

Pipe dream while not not technically impossible, cost is the factor. Integrating a more powerful GPU (even a low end-mid range) into a motherboard will significantly increase the price something which the motherboard manufacturers would not be happy with.

Most machines with integrated graphics are simply not meant for playing games with which is actually quite annoying as there would be a much bigger market to sell to if crappy integrated graphics weren't so prevalent in some PC's.

The next round of integrated GPU's that are at least Direct-X 10 compliant will actually be a small bit better performance wise but still fall short of the add-in cards comparing performance. But you will be able to at least see the difference if you had an add-in DX10 card by enabling all the details even if it only runs at 1-5FPS on your DX10 integrated GPU.