PCI graphic card : OK for Aero ?

[Big Monstro]

Hello,

I would like buying a graphic card with a H.264 hardware support for my pentium 4.
This card will be useful for the next version of Adobe Flash Player (10.1) too.

Unfortunately, my motherboard doesn't have a PCI-E slot : only AGP 4x and PCI 2.2.
It can boot with a PCI card as primary VGA and it also supports PCI 2.1 card.

As Flash 10.1 is more optimized for Nvidia products and the ATI support of their
AGP HD cards is very bad in Windows 7, Vista and even XP (there is no WHQL driver),
I prefer buying a DirectX 10 card from Nvidia. But there is no AGP DirectX 10 Nvidia.
So, I has to choose a PCI (not PCI-E) graphic card.

My current graphic card is a Gigabyte GeForce 6200 AGP 8x.
Windows Aero runs but, for example, "Flip 3D" is pretty slow with a lot of windows.

My next graphic will probably be a EVGA/Sparkle GeForce 9400GT or Albatron 8600GT.
Note : what is the best manufacturer ==> EVGA, Sparkle or Albatron ?

But I wonder about Windows Aero : Isn't a PCI bus too slow for Windows Aero ?
Compared to my GeForce 6200 AGP 8x (running at 4x due to my motherboard),
will 3D Windows GUI (called Aero) be faster or slower with a GeForce 9400GT PCI ?
What about GeForce 8600GT PCI ? I worry because PCI bus is slower than AGP bus.

In short, will there be performance issues with Windows Aero ? Or not ?
Could I sell my GeForce 6200 instead of leaving on my computing (with a PCI card) ?

Thank you for your answers.

 

[thefabe]

If you have a choice between AGP and PCI, AGP is the better choice as the bandwidth is greater. IMO Evga would be my choice only because I'm familiar with their customer support and warranties. Which pending on the card is usualy a lifetime warranty. Also some cards qualify for Evga's Step up program which allows you to upgrade your card within a certian time frame to a better card. Their is also no need to leave both cards on your system unless you want to run more than 2 monitors, And then all other kinds of things come into play. Fabe

 

[torrentg]

Hi. Which motherboard are we talking about here?

 

[Qdos]

It's been a long time since I've even seen a PCI graphics card...

 

[Big Monstro]

Thank you for your previous answers. But I must point out : I don't play games.
This PCI card will be useful only for multimedia. But as I use Windows Seven,
I wonder about Aero : is the PCI brandwith fast enough for Windows Aero ?
Because I think PCI brandwith is even lower than AGP 2x brandwith.

In other terms, which card provide better performance for Windows Aero :
a GeForce 6200 AGP (4x in my case) or a GeForce 8600GT/9400GT but in PCI slot ?

Thank you for your next answers.

 

[ickymay]

Thank you for your previous answers. But I must point out : I don't play games.
This PCI card will be useful only for multimedia. But as I use Windows Seven,
I wonder about Aero : is the PCI brandwith fast enough for Windows Aero ?
Because I think PCI brandwith is even lower than AGP 2x brandwith.

In other terms, which card provide better performance for Windows Aero :
a GeForce 6200 AGP (4x in my case) or a GeForce 8600GT/9400GT but in PCI slot ?

Thank you for your next answers.

AGP

I think you will find what version direct x the card handles is more important , the card needs to handle direct x 9 or more so in agp i could recommend Sapphire ATi HD2600 XT GDDR3 512MB AGP , but more affordable would be the Sapphire RADEON HD2600Pro, (512 MB) AGP, you can get them for £30 ish gbp on Ebay

 

[Big Monstro]

I think you will find what version direct x the card handles is more important , the card needs to handle direct x 9 or more so in agp i could recommend Sapphire ATi HD2600 XT GDDR3 512MB AGP , but more affordable would be the Sapphire RADEON HD2600Pro, (512 MB) AGP, you can get them for £30 ish gbp on Ebay

The current Flash 10.1 doesn't support the ATI Radeon HD 2xxx (and even most ATI
Radeon HD 3xxx). Of course, there would be changes in the future (with the stable
version in end-2009 or early-2010) but the problem is also linked to ATI support.

As you can notice in this forum, there are a lot of problems with AGP ATI under Seven.
And I have to install Catalyst 9.11 or later for the hardware acceleration of Flash 10.1.

Unfortunately, no AGP DirectX 10 Nvidia card exist (why the even older PCI instead ?).

So, what think other people ? Switching from GeForce 6200 AGP to GeForce 8/9 PCI
would be an upgrade or a downgrade for 3D basic performance such as Aero GUI ?
That's my question : my main concern...

Thank you.

 

[thefabe]

For PCI this would be your best choice IMO. DX10, 1gb DDR2, True 128 bit floating point high dymanic range memory interface, Open GL 3.1, shader model 4.0 Cuda support, phisx ready,HDCP ready, Cooling Fan and Evga's great warranty 2 years P&L and customer support. To answer your last question form the specs probably.. Hope this will help you out. Fabe Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P1-N948-LR GeForce 9400 GT 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards