Video Card for Asus P4B533-VM ???

[Katy]

hi guys and gals.
been reading the forums here for a few days,such a huge info base! just a quick question: i have an asus P4B533-VM mobo,with intel 845G chipset,1.7GHz celeron (o'clocked to 1.8),768MB DDR PC2100.See >

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=1967750

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=2035082

At the moment i'm using the onboard intel extreme graphics. the agp slot supports a +1.5v agp card. what are your best recommendations for agp cards for my set-up ? i really have no idea ! many thanks in advance.

[Raven]

Welcome to the TweakTown community, Katy. Hope you enjoy your stay!

Ready to play a game of Good, Bad, and Ugly?

The Good:
We can help!

The Bad:
Your motherboard only supports AGP 4x, at 1.5v. That's a rather limiting facrtor, but the truth of it is just about anything is better than that Intel "Extreme" graphics solution integrated into your motherboard.

The Ugly:
As stated before, the AGP 4x is limiting. Fortunately the newest cards designed for AGP 8x will run on an AGP 4x system, and as it turns out performance differences aren't that huge just yet. It all comes down to how much money you're willing to spend.

--ATi--
For the longest time I was a die hard nVidia geForce fan. You couldn't get me to touch an ATI card with a ten foot pole. Now, however, ATI has gotten their drivers rock solid, and performance using their ATI Radeon 9500 Pro, 9700 Pro, and 9800 Pro is absolutely staggering.

The Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro is a rock solid card for those on a semi-budget pricing scale. I own one myself, and have no major complaints. Overclockability of ATI cards isn't all that hot though, but then again it's not really necessary.

Sapphire is an excellent OEM manufacturer of ATI cards. It'll save you some money and they include some goodies other companies don't.

--nVidia--
If you fall into the nVidia enthusiast line, you may want to check into the GeForce4 Ti4200/4400 series. They're extremely solid performers, and overclock extremely well if you're a tweaker :)

You might want to check out our latest review of the Albatron Medusa Ti4800SE

I wouldn't recommend the new GeForce FX series just yet. Until they fix the fact that they're already overclocked to the extreme limit, and use a fan that is less akin to a vacuum cleaner than a cooler.

The End:

Hope that helped!

[Katy]

hey,thanks so much for the reply. i like that medusa GeForce4 Ti4600 AGP 128MB DDR 2D/3D
(Albatron) - (Ti4600)

is that ok for my machine do you think ? i'm hoping to just slot it in,adjust the bios,and go for it etc. do i need to install the drivers first or last ? is that a dumb question ? sorry !

[Raven]

I don't have your motherboard, so I don't know what the BIOS settings will be, or if you're required to set a jumper to disable the video card. I tried to get the manual to load up on ASUS's site but it's being uncooperative You'll have to look into that more directly.

The general prodecure will be:

-Check your BIOS or manual to see if there's a soft-off feature, or a jumper requirement to disable the onboard video chip.

---
-Disable the video (if soft-off in BIOS), save changes, power down computer.

-OR-

-Power down the computer and change the jumper setting to disable the video (if jumper type setting).
---

-Install the video card, and power up the computer. Go into the BOIS to make sure it's reading the video correctly, and to see that the AGP is at 4x, not 1x, etc..

-After it boots into your OS (Windows XP I believe if I saw those pictures right), XP will probably install a set of generic drivers.

Side note: Make sure to get the latest drivers for your video card. If you choose nVidia, get them from either nVidia or Guru3D. ATI if an ATI card, of course.

After the hardware installation is complete, it's really just a matter of installing the proper drivers. It's easy to go into the Device Manager (Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager ->Display Adapters) and update/uninstall the generic drivers to the latest version.

[Katy]

ok,that's excellent! yes,i have Xp Pro sp1a,and Award BIOS that has an options - Aperture Size (128MB at the moment),AGP Capability 4X,i also have the option to enable or disable the onboard VGA...which i will disable of course after putting the new AGP card in. great! now i'm going to search for some online place in Australia to order that card...