Is it worth the $$$ to upgrade?

[xbiker321]

i currently have a MSI (MS-6390) <-click-> Second product down

What i plan on doing soon is upgrading my video card to a Sapphire Radeon 9700pro. This card supports 8x AGP, my current motherboard can only handle 4x max. Do you guys think there will be a massive performance gain if i buy a new motherboard with 8X AGP...and a new chipset, i hear the nforce 2's are good.

 

[xbiker321]

If you must know why i have an mATX motherboard it is because my case before the Cheiftec was a mATX case. I didnt want to buy a brand new case at the time so i used my mATX case. I recently upgraded to an ATX case so any ATX motherboard with 7 slots max in back will work fine. Any mobo suggested must support an amd xp 2000+ and PC-2100 DDR because i dont want to upgrade any more than i have to...i wont have much money after i buy a Radeon 9700pro

 

[xbiker321]

*bump*

 

[hassmh]

It's not worth it for the performance difference from 4x to 8x. Not sure about the performance gain overall with new motherboard. I'd say probably not, but considering you're shelling out the $$$ for a 9700 it may be worth it to you to put up another +/- $150 for a new motherboard.

For what it's worth, I've got a <1 year old nForce1 board and I'm going to be getting an nForce2 board soon, but then again most (non-techie) people I know think I'm crazy

 

[xbiker321]

so you guys dont think its worth the little performance gain to upgrade my current mATX motherboard to a new 8x ATX motherboard when i buy a Sapphire Radeon 9700pro?

 

[Fuddrucker]

Nope. There are no games out there yet that can utilize the 8X AGP or even require that kind of bandwidth.

 

[attack]

It's not worth upgrading mobos for the 8x performance increase, however, If you waited a bit (only a week) and watched how nforce2 pans out, the added features for OCing, dual channel memory, and other features might make it quite worth the upgrade for you. But 8x agp alone is definetly not worth, atleast not yet, if it does become much more of an advantage you can buy it later and save yourself cash or get a better mobo.