[rxkevco]

Right ,, here goes,,,

Have a " BFG GEFORCE FX 5500 ",,which i thought was fried and has been lying around.
Turns out its fine now ??

Got a new pc last week, and picked up a "POWER COLOUR X700 SE ", to go with it,,,mainly cos the pc has only 3 pci slots and 1 pci-e slot,, so got the x700 as it was pci-e.

Now,,,not sure,, but i dont think the x700 is as good as the fx5500 !!!! why ???
Well ,, i am not a gamer,, (but am being slowly converted ),,,
but i do watch a lot of live tv, via sky box> tv card,, watch a lot of dvd and streaming video,, and do a bit of video editing.
As the new pc is twice as fast as my old one was, with twice the memory etc,,, i just dont think the picture quality is as good as the fx5500,,,,, but this is a feeling more than concrete evidence.
Just wondered if anyone can give me an idea what card would have been better,, bearing in mind the fx5500 is an agp card.

Am prepared to take back the x700, if there is a card suited to my needs,, for maybe an extra £50,, on top of the £60 i paid for the x700.
In other words,, am prepared to pay around about £100 ish for a decent card.

Am a bit dumbfounded by the wide variety of cards out there,, but the only slot i can fill now, is the pci- e slot,, so that restricts me abit i think.

Would appreciate any advice

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The pci-e slot is not something that would restrict you as all new gfx cards are pci-e its the new standard and has replaced agp, the x700 is substantially faster than the 5500 its posible though you havent got the display settings properly set make sure your resolution and refresh rate are properly set to that of your monitor and make sure you have the latest ATI drivers installed(or omega drivers if you fancy something a bit different).

x700 is a slower than normal model so if you wanted to get something faster there are x800s now going for £100ish which are alot faster than the x700 or there are actually better x700 models of the x700 for £60 if you shop around, but i would probably just hold onto it a bit longer until the summer card releases when dx10 cards come out old dx9s will go down even further in price.

But PCI-e is a good thing to have in terms of choice it offers you alot more options than AGP would as they stopped making new cards for AGP a while ago from this generation you can only get special AGP versions which are usually slower than normal pci-e versions.

[warriorscot]

The pci-e slot is not something that would restrict you as all new gfx cards are pci-e its the new standard and has replaced agp, the x700 is substantially faster than the 5500 its posible though you havent got the display settings properly set make sure your resolution and refresh rate are properly set to that of your monitor and make sure you have the latest ATI drivers installed(or omega drivers if you fancy something a bit different).

x700 is a slower than normal model so if you wanted to get something faster there are x800s now going for £100ish which are alot faster than the x700 or there are actually better x700 models of the x700 for £60 if you shop around, but i would probably just hold onto it a bit longer until the summer card releases when dx10 cards come out old dx9s will go down even further in price.

But PCI-e is a good thing to have in terms of choice it offers you alot more options than AGP would as they stopped making new cards for AGP a while ago from this generation you can only get special AGP versions which are usually slower than normal pci-e versions.

[rxkevco]

Hi Warriorscot,,
Thanks for the info,,, i had a funny feeling you would come in on this one,, thanks.

Right,, so ,, would i be better paying the extra, and getting the x800, and holding onto that till the dx9 cards come down in price a bit more,, or just keep the x700, bearing in mind that i am not using it for high end graphics stuff. ??
Would my money be better spent getting hold of another gig of memory to add to the gig i already have.??
would the extra gig be more beneficial to me than a better gfx,, if i am only trying to get the best out of dvds, video editing and sky tv (via happaugue 150 pvr),,,,

Cheers,, kev.

[warriorscot]

well really for dvds youve got more than enough to run them now and same for tv, vid editing would be better with more ram than a gfx card. If you arent going to be doing high end i would stick with the x700 for now and later on if you want to start doing a bit more gaming or anything like that get something higher end when youve got the cash to get a good mid-high end card.

But what i would do is fine tune the cards settings to get the best out of it at standard settings it isnt as good looking as it can be, i like omega drivers as they are just ati catalysts but with some modifications to make them easier to fine tune so you can set it up to offer best dvd watching experience with AA and AF on all the time.

[BlackPandemic]

Right now I'd suggest doing nothing with video cards. DX10 is coming and that will be better money spent, so wait on that.

Second, a gig is pretty standard these days but another gig (which you can get from Newegg for like $70) can really help in terms of video editing/Photoshop/other editing programs. So if you have a steady cash flow, get the memory now, and wait until DX10 for the new video card.

[rxkevco]

Thanks guys,,,
Will stick with the x700 for now,,, might get another gig of ram to go with what i have already.
Patience has never been one of my virtues,, but i will try and hang on till the new gfx lines start hitting the shelves in a few months or so,,,,
Realistically though,, i think i have persueded myself that what i have is good enough for what i am doing,,, so why upgrade to a high end card that will never get out of first gear !!!

Thanks for the reality check guys,,,,