Page 1 of Upgrading a graphics card

PCs & Mobiles Forum

Upgrading a graphics card

Claudia Salinger (Competent) posted this on Wednesday, 15th October 2003, 13:20

I`ve got AGP x2 on my 4 year old Evesham PC and have a 16MB Nvidia TNT2 card in it at the moment. I want to run Champ Manager 4 but the minimum requirements are 32 MB. Can I upgrade my card to a newer AGP 4 or 8 card or am I stuck with trying to find a x2 card?

I`m thinking that I can upgrade but it would only run at x2. Still this would be better than what I`ve got if I can get something with more MB on board. I haven`t got a free PCI slot, otherwise I`d upgrade that way.

Claudia

RE: Upgrading a graphics card

Hominid (Competent) posted this on Wednesday, 15th October 2003, 14:11

AGP slots come in the following flavours,
AGP 1x 3.3V
AGP 1x,2x 3.3V
AGP 1x,2x,4x 3.3V/1.5V
AGP 2x,4x 1.5V
AGP 4x,8x 1.5V/0.8V

Graphics cards come in pretty much the same flavours, the current 8x cards are 4x compatible with come able to run in 2x 1.5V slots. The main thing to be aware of is putting 3.3V cards in 1.5V slots and vice versa.

I`ve put in Geforce3 cards into AGPx2 slots and they`ve worked fine. I would suggest that you don`t get a card better than Geforce3 class because your system is rather old and therefor the benifit would be minimal.

RE: Upgrading a graphics card

Claudia Salinger (Competent) posted this on Wednesday, 15th October 2003, 16:05

Thanks,

Can I check the voltage of the card without opening up my case?

Claudia

RE: Upgrading a graphics card

Hominid (Competent) posted this on Wednesday, 15th October 2003, 16:57

Some of the later info i gave before might be wrong

AGP 4x,8x 1.5V/3.3V (i think)

The only sure way to find out is to take the side off of the machine and look for the model number of the motherboard, should be stamped on it somewhere in big white characters. Then you`ll have to do a search for it, or post it here and someone will help find the specs for your motherboard.

Most likely you`ve got a AGPx2 3.3V motherboard.

RE: Upgrading a graphics card

Claudia Salinger (Competent) posted this on Thursday, 16th October 2003, 12:05

I`ve got a Chaintech 6BTM mobo. Can`t find any info on the web or CT`s site (surprisingly they don`t support it now) about the AGP slot apart from that it`s v1.0 compliant. Have found out that the DIMMs run off 3.3V so I guess that`s what the AGP is. Right?

Claudia

RE: Upgrading a graphics card

Hominid (Competent) posted this on Thursday, 16th October 2003, 14:17

Found out from here: http://www.evrenlimited.com.tr/boards/6BTM.htm that the board is AGP x2 capable, and therefor most probably 3.3V too.

I know for sure that a Geforce2Mx will work in it 100% but i`m not too sure if it`s that much of an upgrade - although you can get one with the memory you need.

I would have a go and get something like a Geforce3 card, should work ok, just tell them from the shop that you have a AGPx2 mobo and let them advise you on what card will work. That`s the best way really as then you have a way of returning the card if it doesn`t work in the motherboard.

Go back to PCs & Mobiles Forum threads, or All Forum threads