Graphics card compatibility worries

Okay, so I'm currently running on a really old NVidia GeForce 5700LE 128mbVRAM. I'm looking at a GeForce 8800GT, which is decidedly sweeter and would improve my Second Life performance a ton. However, my mobo is an (also old) MSI K7N2 Delta, and I'm not sure it would be compatible with such a newfangled video card. After all, an AMD XP 3000+ CPU is the absolute maximum it can take.

I don't know entirely much about hardware, and I am afraid of making a huge mistake by spending cash on a card that won't work with my comp. Does anyone know how to tell if a vid card is compatible - or are they all compatible?

Thanks in advance!
- Gryph

According to the specs, you can only use an AGP (8x) card (not PCI Express, which would have been preferable), so do make sure that's what you get, otherwise you'll be disappointed.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/product_detail.asp?model=K7N2_Delta-l

Whether you can get NVidia 8800 AGP cards, I have no idea. I know you can get the NVidia 7xxx range in AGP though (the 7950GT is a very nice, fast graphics card).

Thank you so much! The 7950 looks delicious. Now I just have to find someone who has an extra one lying around. xD (I'm poor. I can't afford to buy it new.)

Cheers!

my wife has the same board

a "superclocled" evga 7600GT
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3212527&CatId=2234

good bang, and not too expensive, nor hard to find (like a 7900 series)

I just noticed that. None of my usual suppliers sell anything higher than NVidia 7600 cards for AGP. Perhaps it's not worth selling anything faster because of bandwidth limitations. Perhaps it's because AGP has been on the way out since 2004.

It's a shame the OP is stuck with AGP really because PCI-Express cards cost less. (An NVidia 8600 PCI-e is £10 less than an NVidia 7600 AGP at all the suppliers I just checked for example.)

Sooner or later, it's time to bite the bullet and let the single core AGP system go.

Yes, it requires considerably more money up front (new motherboard, CPU and memory, at least), but six months from now, you aren't going to be back in this boat again.

Yeah, I can't remember when I last had a system with an AGP card. Possibly around 2004/2005. I tend to upgrade my entire system or buy a new one every 1/2 years though.

Still, a 7600 should be noticeably faster than a 5600 if these stats are anything to go by:

http://freestone-group.com/video-card-stability-test/benchmark-results.html

Faster speed is not always a given just because an NVidia card is from a more recent family (ie. 7xxx instead of 5xxx). FlipperPA educated me about that over at SLU a few weeks ago.

Nvidia Ge force 7100 FLIES with SL, mine's on Vista, but the XP drivers fly too. Running linux I get the same speeds as Windows, and the drivers are handmade by Nvidia on all oses. plus the 7100 is cheap. for XP, that's what I recommend.

well with that super clocked model the gpu is running just of a 8800Gt, altho the memory speed is way off, its like dual 400mhz vs 1800mhz

course with a 5600 your looking at like 350-400mhz gpu core speed (my suggestion runs at 580), and memory speeds at like dual 300mhz if your lucky

a 7600 is about the same speed as a 5600, a 7600gt will beat it, a (factory) overclocked 7600gt ought to kick the 5600 right square in the

also lets not forget the card in question isnt even as good as a 5600, its a 5700 LE, looser edition, 32 or 64 bit memory bandwidth, super cheap / slow components ... its basicly a 56/5700 that didnt make the cut, but didnt suck enough to be defective

(no offense, im sure the person that sold it to you made it sound uber)