How do I determine whether a video card is compatible with my motherboard?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eclectic_Loner

Ah crap. I can only afford a video card.

Too bad

Edit: What's the best motherboard currently out there and how much is it?

---

You seem to like to toss out huge questions.

It would be similar to asking what is the best car and how much is it?

Unanswerable. There is a thing called the internet that you can use to study the situation at length.

Yeah, never mind the stupid newbie question I asked.

What do you think of this: http://www.epinions.com/Gigabyte_GA_...ay_~full_specs

Personally with 0 knowledge of technology, I'm just trying to avoid a case where I spend thousands and find out that the board is outdated by the time I buy it and I have to go get a new board to support the high spec games.

I have built a few systems with that board. I liked it quite a lot.

But again, that was a while ago (maybe 2 years ago) that is also quite outdated when it comes to computers.

How about this? http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1735

Edit: btw is the 6600 a decent video card or is it considered an above average by today's standards?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eclectic_Loner

Ah crap. I can only afford a video card.

Too bad

Edit: What's the best motherboard currently out there and how much is it?

---

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...&CMP=ILC-FPM10

check this mobo+cpu, its a killer mobo and cpu for a very low price

Which one of those boards are you referring to?

Edit: Are those Canadian dollars or US dollars?

After doing a search for the most expensive boards available in my country on this site, this is what I got: http://www.hardwarezone.com.ph/price...id=266&id=7543

Is it any good?

Looks similar to my old board only it's 8x. I don't understand the rest of the specs.

What does it mean if it's an intel socket or an amd socket etc.? Is it just compatibility issues or does it literally mean a p4 won't fit in an AMD socket board?

Edit: Read some positive reviews though not informative for a newb like me. Is this really that great?

I don't know which board he was referring to, but the prices are $CDN

Your question about different chips and different sockets. Amd chips don't fit Intel sockets and vice-versa.
Not only that, Intel have more than one socket (currently Socket 478 and Socket 775) and matching chip. That also goes for Amd with Socket A, Socket 754 and Socket 939.
So you've not only got to make sure that you get an Intel chip for an Intel motherboard, or an Amd chip for an Amd motherboard, you've got to make sure that the type of motherboard socket and processor chip match too.

For Intel, Socket 478 is outdated or low budget (depending on chipset).
For Amd, Socket A is outdated, Socket 754 is very much for low budget machines.

The board you picked

• is expensive
• is outdated
• probably has features you will never use (which bump up the price)

If you are going to change your motherboard to something more up-to-date, it probably means you will have to change your processor too. You can probably get an Amd socket 939 motherboard and matching Athlon64 3000+ for not much more than the price of that mobo. I can't see any S939 processors on that site though.

Since the objective is to improve your graphics, you may as well go straight to a pci-express motherboard. The prices are about the same as AGP 8x, both for motherboards and graphics cards, but you jump past the (already outdated) AGP 8x slot.

One other thing to consider if gaming is your objective. Look at what the motherboard offers in terms of onboard sound. Most will just offer an audio codec. That means that the chip just does the physical work but the calculations of how to produce a particular sound have to be done by your cpu, and that's quite a lot of work and reduces game performance. High end boards offer an audio processor, which means that the work is removed from the cpu. Compare the cost of a board with just a codec with the cost of one with an audio processor though. You may find that the difference is far more than the cost of adding a pci sound card.

What about this? http://www.hardwarezone.com.ph/news/...?id=2990&cid=4

It's PCI but I don't know if it's an audio processor or just an audio codec.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eclectic_Loner

What about this? http://www.hardwarezone.com.ph/news/...?id=2990&cid=4

It's PCI but I don't know if it's an audio processor or just an audio codec.

---

omg stop looking at shit ur never gonna buy and go to a real seller site like newegg.com or tigerdirect.com and fcking look up a mobo and read the fcking reviews.

OMG...my advice is just goto a store and buy a complete setup. You're not ready to be a builder! This is purely based on the questions you've been asking.