Need help on getting a GPU for mobo...

hi all. i came upon a machine that i am turning into a linux box. the motherboard spec is here

the original machine came with a 20GB HD and 256MB Ram. i now have bought and received 2 of these <a HREF=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134171&gt; to put me to 2 GB RAM(the max) and this hard drive for a nice boost in hard drive space.

now into the GPU choice. according to the spec:

“It has the external AGP slot with AGP 4X 266 MHz capability…”

that has be stumped. i can get an AGP card but what is the 266Mhz capability mean? does that mean i cannot get a GPU with more than a clock speed of 266 Mhz?

thanks for your help!.

Yes you can get a graphic card with a greater data transfert rate, this is not a problem, it would just be limited by the AGP bus speed. AGP 4x is good, what kind of graphic card do you need?

The 266 MHz is the clock rate of the bus, not the GPU.

i actually have ran into a setback. either i am seeing things or that mobo spec is wrong.

i got this off the manufacturers website according to them:

Motherboard, SiS 650 chipset, Socket478, microATX, 400 MHz FSB, 4X AGP, 3 PCI, 1 CNR, 2 SDR DIMMs, ATA/100, integrated Video, Audio, and LAN.

i did a search for this and thought the mobo link above was correct.

as i look closer into the box i see there are 2 DIMMS. but the memory that i got (PC2100) that just came in does not match, which are 184-pin DIMMS - if you look at the bottom of this memory you will notice one groove. however looking at the DIMM slots more closely on the mobo i see that there are two places for 2 grooves in the slots, therefore telling me that the only DIMM’s that are going to fit in there are the 168-pin DIMM’s. the 256MB memory chip i pulled out was a PC133 speed so it looks like i am going to have to stick with that and my max memory is going to be 1GB instead of 2GB since it looks like there isn’t memory above 512MB per stick for the PC133 speed. whats even more amazing is that the PC133 memory is about $12-$14 more than the PC2100 1GB sticks each. i’ll never know the reasoning behind that.

can someone look up that mobo and see if they can get a match? from all i can see is that i will have to settle for the PC133 memory sticks. the computer itself was shipped in 2002. one of my friends was moving and took this as an opportunity to get my own linux box. so theres the story on that.

as far as the GPU is concerned i was really wanted to get this GPU but wasnt sure if this would be the best bet.

sorry for the long post but hopefully i can get some closure on what is the best i can do for this system. thanks!

I looked at the PDFs of all 5 versions of the P4S5MG mobo, and all had 4 DIMM slots. 2 (very near to the cpu) being DDR, and 2 next to them for SDR (with the two grooves). The mobo does support 2GB DDR. See Page 4 of this: http://eudownload.ecs.com.tw/dlfileecs/manual/mb/eng/p4/p4s5mg50eng.zip

For a GPU, GF7300 can suffice. As far as AGP compatibility goes, afaik there were problems only with AGP4x<->AGP2x mismatches, while AGP4x<->AGP8x are fine.

SDR RAM is rare, thus more expensive to manufacture. DDR1 price is also very high for a similar reason. DDR2 is extremely cheap, and you can’t get a new mobo with DDR1 or SDR support now.

hi Iilan - thanks for the reply. the only thing that i can say is that the mobo has 2 slots on the board…both with 2 grooves and that is it. i wish i knew how or why but that is the case. i wish i could have taken a picture. i might do that tonight and post so you can see for yourself. at any rate there are only two SDR slots. interestingly enough if you look on page 15-17, the image that they show only shows 2 slots. :confused:

thanks for the advice on the GPU slot. i think the 7300 will work just fine for my needs. ill post a picture of the mobo tonight(it’s friday morning now). look for that. until then thanks again!