NVidia 5950 Ultra questiosn

Stugots

A couple of quick questions on an NVidia 5950 Ultra before I purchase:

The NVIdia site says AGP 8x, but it doesn't specifically say (as far as I can see) that AGP 1X, 2X and 4x are not supported. I presume that the PC I intend installing on (1GHz, vintage 2001) certainly does not support AGP 8x. Does anyone know how I can confirm the speed of my AGP port and whether the NVidia 5950 Ultra supports AGP ports less than 8X?

Second question: is it likely to be necessary to install an additional fan to cool the NVidia card? I know it has a fan onboard already, but somebody mentioned that it might be necessary to install an extra fan in the PC case to facilitate the necessary cooling.

Thx in advance.

Will_hendrix

8x AGP is backword compatable to 4x, check your bios for the "fast write" protocal, its requied for the 4x/8x to function. if no joy, you can get a new motherboard for under 60euro. and all new boards are backword compatable provided the cpu pin setup is correct

id suggest getting a geforce 6600GT at least, will set you back 250euro, i have a geforce 6800, cost 350euro, but you need at lest 512 DDR PC3200 or else the card is bottlenecked for bandwith

a cool running system is good for stabilty and in most cases having the 2 PCI slots beside the AGP port free and open at the back would suffice but to be extra safe get an air intake fan mounted to the side of your case below the gfx card and an extractor fan which mounts deside the power suppily (which should at least be 300w)
Tape any lose wires from the Power suppily to the top of the case, have the power lead to the card on is own (if required and meaning not connected to any hard drive or disk drive aswell) and last if you have the cash to spare get round wire IDE leads, strap leads restrict airflow, any other questions?

Stugots

Thanks for the info! Will let you know if anything else arises.

duridian

Yeah like was said above go for a 6600GT instead. I've got a FX5900 which overclocks to 5950 ultra speeds and its still only fair, good enough at DX8 but ****e at DX9 compared to 6 series, I'm actually sorry I went for an FX instead of a 9700 or 9800 when I bought it last year. Have to stick with it for now though and wait until the 6800 or X800 series come down a bit in price. still could be worse I suppose, at least it ain't a 5200.

duridian

Yeah, there was a similar thing to make Halo run in DX8 rather that 9 but that is just working around by cutting eyecandy etc. The card still isn't any more capable which is the problem in the first place.

Nukem

Ya meant to comment on this earlier - was busy sorry.
Get a 6600gt over the 5950 anyday.

mordeith

I'd just like to say that I recemtly bought a FX5900 XT and have to say I'm very pleased. I didn't want to spend a fortune on a card and this suited perfectly. Halo runs like a dream and other games that were causing me trouble before also run perfectly. I'm not overly bothered about fps and benchmarking as long as the game runs smoothly.
I would advise a new power unit though. I got a 450W Be-Quiet for €100 from Hi-Tide and also upgraded to 756MB RAM and my whole gaming experience has changed dramatically. Splinter Cell looks awesome and over all I'm chuffed.
The 5900XT is AGP8X but as said by others it works fine on my 4X mobo.