Quote: "AGP?
OK, your Motherboard must be pretty old then. I suggest just getting a new Motherboard, which can support the latest Proccesors and DDR2 memory. And offcourse, PCI-Express. takes some money, but its worth it in the end.(I know it, as i did that to mine.)"
You don't need an old motherboard for AGP. They still sell brand new ones with AGP slots. It's a choice you make. If you still have a number of non-raid hardware (like DVD-player & Harddisks) in your pc that you still want to run in the new one and you have an up to date AGP GFX card (yes, they even sell those brand new), you may not want a motherboard with PCI-E.
You can get brand new motherboards that run DDR2 memory, the latest cpu's and still have AGP and Ultra-DMA in them.
It's a bit of a trade-off, but it works well if you don't want to replace everything. Your speed loss won't even be that bad.
For what it's worth, I even heard that some people with an FX5200 managed to run DX10 on it and that one is really outdated.
Just take a card like this one.....
http://www.xpertvision.com/en/products/ati_agp_X1950PRO-Super.html
In spite of being AGP, it will easily outrun what most of you have now, it beats a Nvidia 8600 and it's a matter of time for this AGP card to get an DX10 version.
I would really wait a little while longer with making the switch and see how the market develops.
If you're looking for an AGP card that can run DX10, look for the MSI RX2600PRO. It's the one of the first AGP cards that runs DX10.
No need to get a new system, just get a new AGP GFX card that is able to run DX10. Don't expect nVidia to release any of them, they stated they will not. It's usual for them to let users with yesterdays system down. Look to ATI/AMD instead.
Here are some more AGP DX10 cards and they're very fast and good:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/ne/products/products_overview.php?gpid=180&grp=2
http://www.sapphiretech.com/ne/products/products_overview.php?gpid=185&grp=2
You have to check with TGC if these work well for FPSC X10 also, it's clear that TGC has signed an alliance with nVidia (very bad choice) and X01 doesn't run so well on ATI cards, which was to be expected. TGC shouldn't bet on one horse, but give the user the choice. Who wants to have nVidia anyway after their ill treatment of the winners of the compo?
Quote: "Yes, as i said. Takes some money. But its worth it in the end. As you can upgrade now. Or in 6 months when AGP cards will be considered "Stone Age Mechanics""
Why? They'll be around for years.... you need to remember that most of the people using a computer still are using the old single core non 64 bit cpu's and not all of them are upgrading to the newest system, a lot of them they're buying the cheaper machines with.... you guessed it, AGP slots in them.
Then there's the "problem" that most people refuse to make the step to Vista and they will not do so for next year. AGP will not be outdated in 6 months, that will still take a few years. XP will not be outdated in 6 months, that will take a few more years also. DX9 will not be outdated for a number of years.... way to many DX9 customers and too few DX10 customers. It will take at least another year for that to change and perhaps even a number of more years.
Unless Microsoft released DX10 for XP, even they know that Vista is heading the same way as Windows ME, so I wouldn't be suprised to see DX10 for XP released.