Just discovered my nice new shiny machine ain't got an AGP slot in it :( Anyway, can you get decent PCI cards that will cope with games like Vice City? Cheers

Moving to Consumers forum ...

The best PCI one I've seen lately is a Geforce4-MX440. I bought one for one of my pcs. It's not brilliant but it's better than the onboard chip.
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=39550

A shiny new PC/mobo without an AGP slot? No luck m8.

I've been keeping an eye on PCI 3D cards for the last couple of years (as I have 2 deskpro small form factor PC's with no AGP as well as some tower machines) and you pay a premium to get the PCI version of cards that are fairly cheap as AGP.

Cheap (and none too chearful): TNT2 or Geforce2MX200/400.

Middle of the road: Geforce4MX440SE or Radeon 9000.

Top end: Whatever you can find if you have the money - some manufacturers do varous PCI versions, but they cost an arm and a leg.

- The TNT2 is very old hardware - dont touch with a bargepole.
- GF2MX200/400 - slow versions of the GF2 card, passibly manage RTCW,
struggle a lot with anything more demanding.
- GF4MX440SE: a m8 just bought 1 of these and he runs CS/HL happily &
it should manage newer games ok - be aware though that its an SE
version which is avaialbe as PCI, seems to be a cut down version (not a
lot of hard data to find on web searches - i think the pipeline has been
cut down).
- Radeon 9000: Just bought 1 of these myself but having difficulty getting
it to stop hanging the PC - seems to be a chipset compatability issue on the old shitty intel chipset on the Deskpro (or card could be duff -will find out tonight on a different PC). Should be slightly faster than the GF4MX440SE. If i find out i'll pass my findings on.
- Others: After this the money gets silly for what you're getting compared to an AGP card.

I'd recommend you get the GF4MX440SE or the Radeon 9000. Although if you're new PC doesn't even have an AGP slot, i wonder where else corners have been cut in its performance and features. What spec is it? Why no AGP - is it a small form factor? Or a fairly cheap system with onboard Video? (no offense meant ;-).

And don't worry about PCI versus AGP - theres not a hell of a lot of difference in performance at this level.

Good online price guides and shops: ebuyer.com (as post above points out), dabs.com and easyetrader.co.uk.

Good luck with your purchase, Honytonk.

sorry to hear of you woes godthedj,
but this kind of thing should`nt be happening.
where did you get it???
what did they say it would or would`nt do???
what was the price???
i`d recomend you take it back for exchange, for an agp.
honytonk, i cant understand your statement about performance, have you tried playing c&c generals with a pci card????

None of the new wave of cards will be pci because it will just not get enough data through fast enough. The mx440 will most likely be the last of its kind.

Yeah it confused me too. Bloody brand new P4 2.6Ghz Dell machine, 512ddr RAM, the lot. But no bloody AGP slot! Grrr

i picked up a sec. hand dell p4 2gig 32meg onboard graphixs and agp for £100 WHY/HOW COME you ask, because the agp (still empty btw) uses a low profile card, and these are like rocking horse s**t and cost the earth. so what price for one without agp.??????
imho, seriously try to exchange it (with a normal sized agp onboard), even if they charge you a bit more, or when you get fed up spending on it and getting nowhere, you`ll probably sell it for ~£100.