I'm going to buy a new graphics card for my ASUS A7N8X-VM 400 Motherboard. It has an integrated nVidia GeForce 4mx GPU, but I've decided it's time to upgrade cause I'm learning Maya these days (also, all the new games need pixel shader support).

What I'm worried about is which graphics card is supported on my Motherboard. My motherboard supports 8x graphics 1.5V. Here are some pics from the motherboard manual:





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Does this mean ABSOLUTELY ANY 8x graphics card will work with my motherboard? Does that include 2.0 and 3.0? I have no idea which one is supported by my motherboard.

I'd like to take an nVidia card (coz it's recommended for GTASA ) with pixel shaders and 256MB atleast. Can anyone share any info on the GeForce 5200 and GeForce 6200 cards and whether they'll work on my system? I'd really appreciate it. I'd also like to know what other cards are available. I'm not looking in the very high price range, but something that'll work fairly well with all the new games coming out these days. I've already got 512MB RAM, so, I just need a good graphics card.

Thanks .

Well you pretty much already have figured out the card you need. The only problem is that I would suggest going up the ladder a bit more and go higher then the 6200, if you can find a 7600 in AGP format then you would be set. My reasoning is that the newer games run slow on anything below a 6800. Also if your gonna try to run Visat with its aero theme you will need the Geforce 7xxx or better.

Your main problem will be finding them in AGP format, and most of the NVidia cards coming out have stopped being made in it. You might have to go with an ATI card, you can still find them being put out in the AGP format all the way up to the x1300 I believe.

Well, my motherboard is 2 years old and it probably entered the market 3-4 years ago (in India atleast). Will any 8x graphics card work with it ... say the latest AGP card that nvidia or ATI came out with?

I'm not sure if I can get the 7600 or higher within my budget. But if you say it's that good, then I'll just postpone the purchase to the end of next month when I'll get my first salary.

How are the ATI cards performance in comparison with nvidia? I'm kinda prejudiced towards nvidia, but if ATI is really good, then I won't mind going for that either.

Edit: Looks like the AGP models for nvidia end with the geforce 6600 series. I guess I should go and check out if this model is even available at my place. What is the difference between the GT, LE and regular models?

This post has been edited by abhiram: Jul 19 2006, 01:19 AM

Ive heard that the nvidia and ATI radeon or something like that are t he best, but thats just what i alwasy here. But In reality, I have no clue which is the best, but I also do know that in order to run some of these new games that are coming out you need a series 6 oor 7. type f card. If that makes sense, to you.. Im assuming its the latest versions of the graphics, cards.

this is definately the wrong section to be posting that question. and you really need to read the topics before you start posting questions. where they dont belong

I actually got to visit nVIDIA just last week, and we had a nice discussion about their graphics cards. Now, for use with maya, they actually recommend to professional Quadro series instead if the GeForce, but they are a lot more expensive since they are porfessional grade. However, for end users with Maya, it is best to get one of the high end GTX 7 series graphics cards.

~Viz

I'm sure they're dam expensive, but it's not just that ... the quadro series all use PCI-E and not AGP. The whole idea behind buying a card is not just to run Maya, but also to be able to use the same system for another couple of years atleast. I'm not a high-end Maya user, just trying to learn something because I've got time on my hands. It actually works okay with my onboard geforce4mx, but once the polygon count increases too much, that's when I have problems.

Went to the shops today to kinda ask around about which cards are available ... all of them are stocked up with the silly 5200 card which apparently is the cheapest. One guy actually had a 6600 and said he could get a 6600 GT as well if I wanted it. I'm considering that card right now.

Ah, yes, agp, any geforce agp card 6 series or better should work fine for you, although I prefer the GTX series of cards, the GT is nice as well.

~Viz

There's a GTX as well? What's the difference? Why does nvidia give these silly extensions to their cards? Which one is the best? If I'm going to buy a card, it better be a good one right?

Yes, buy the best you can afford, thats the best idea. Just remember that the AGP format is now obsolet so you might have to search around to find the card you want. There are sites on the web you can purchase from like newegg.com or pricewatch.com and others. Just shop around and take your time.