should I upgrade my AGP 6800GS to PCI-E?

[capnfoo]

right now I have an asus a8v with an amd64 3200, a 6800 GS 256mb, and a gig of ram. Should I get a better AGP card, or go all the way and get a new motherboard w/ pci-e? I'm mainly wanting to run these 3 games well: oblivion (right now i'm at all low and still like <10 frames), Armed Assault, and a few future releases like C&C 3. What would be the best agp card to get that would run those well? I'm thinkin $200-300. tanks

 

[enforcerfx]

Armed assault should be fine for a 6800GS, just tone down the resolution. As for Oblivion and Command and Conquer 3, go for the PCI-E setup, just for the fact that there is a wider selection of those types of graphics cards and most of the time come cheaper than the AGP versions. You have a lot of time as Command and Conquer 3 is not suppose to hit shelves until this late spring into summer.

 

[capnfoo]

so to do that I pretty much have to buy a new computer. Is there a site or place that buys pc's?

 

[cleeve]

You can get an AGP X1950 PRO for $200 after rebates right now on newegg... that would be a good pair with your Athlon64:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161070

You can get a PCI express X1950 PRO for $170-ish, so if you would prefer to use that $30 savings on a new Motherboard, that wouldn't be a bad thing either.

EIther way, your CPU and an X1950 PRO would make a nice platform for Oblivion. Not the best, but very playable.

 

[capnfoo]

Yeah, I've heard that there's a good bit of bottlenecking tho with higher end agp cards. Would this be a factor? Armed assault is playable right now on 1280x1024, but with everything turned off or on low so maybe this summer I'll sell my machine and go pci-e for C&C.

 

[cleeve]

Actually, AGP isn't much of a bottleneck at all.

The 7600 GT shows no difference between the PCI express or AGP versions.

 

[miribus]

Startup another system, I'd say you're about due.
It seems a bit silly to just upgrade the board for a better video card unless you're getting a great one. Even then.
Upgrade it all or...
Get a 1950pro AGP.
Even though there would be higher performance on a faster chip, that's not to say that the 1950pro would be slower than another card.