Cousin is Giving me Her Motherboard...is it good?

**unKnownWarrior** · September 18, 2006, 10:24 PM

well my cousin will be giving me her motherboard for free along with the case, dvd burner, 60 gig hd, windows xp o/s, and 256 mb of ram...and i dont know the cpu i think its really slow...

anyways this is her motherboard she is giving me...

http://www.shopping.com/xPF-Elitegroup_K7VMM_20259428

can you tell me how good is it...also what is the best video card i can put on it to run the latest games...and what processor could it handle?

basically i need parts to make it good enough to make it run the latest games...

**UnderdawgIV** · September 18, 2006, 10:30 PM

To tell you the truth. It is technology from about 5 years ago or 6 I forget. It is also AGP while AGP is just about dead. It is Socket A. A Athlon XP would fit but those are OOOOooold. I would suggest just ditching it.

**unKnownWarrior** · September 18, 2006, 10:38 PM

so might as well sell the comp at ebay...

i know its old i just wanna know how far its limits can go...

**Vanquisher** · September 18, 2006, 10:43 PM

Actually AGP cards are still a good bet today and in a lot of cases better value for money (PCI-E rarely reaching the fabled 16X speeds). The problem is that your only have a 4x connection, with all the latest cards running at 8x and the games needing this to run smoothly that is NOT going to do. For that alone I would dump it. The ram connection is also patheticly slow being DDR1/SD connection and the FSB is also infinatly slow as well as the processor's available for the board being the same. If you want it to play Half life at decent speeds OK. But if you want to play Half life 2 at decent speeds it AIN'T gonna do.

**Lee1026** · September 18, 2006, 10:43 PM

Not very. We are limited to AXP 3100 and geforce 7800gs.

**Incinerate_IV** · September 19, 2006, 04:41 PM

Its only AGP 4x, so buying a 7800GS will be like throwing $200 away.

The computer is useless, just savlage the hard drive and DVD burner, and burn the rest.

**Lee1026** · September 19, 2006, 05:20 PM

Well, AGP 4x is compatible with AGP8x, so I failed to see your point.

**Incinerate_IV** · September 19, 2006, 05:31 PM

Yea, but it won't operate at its true potential. Hence why we replaced x4 with x8, and now replaced by PCI-E.

**Lee1026** · September 19, 2006, 05:35 PM

Well, video cards operate without the need for that much bandwidth. From what I have seen, there are barely any differences in actual performance.

**UnderdawgIV** · September 19, 2006, 08:31 PM

I can't seem to dig up my source right now but a 7800GS pushes some 5-6 lanes which is over a 4x AGP slot so a 4x AGP slot would slow a 7800GS. Plus for the price of a 7800GS you could get a 7900GT or a X1800XT already though in PCI-E. I would suggest he save his money and invest in a PCI-E build instead.

**Incinerate_IV** · September 19, 2006, 09:16 PM

A 7800GS is a much more powerful card than the ones in review, all the reviews are using the Radeon 9x00 series or the Geforce 4 series, which is pretty outdated, and its designed for AGP. A powerful card such as the 7800GS running only at AGP 4x... its probably going to lag behind a little.