Whats the most powerful PCI video card available?

[yoda313]

I was wondering since my emachine has only PCI and no agp or pci-e slots. I'm not in a rush to by a new card since I recently bought new surround sound speakers

But I'm currently running a ATI 9250. I know there in to the x### series now but I'm 99.99% certain those are all pci-e or AGP models.

I can go with ATI or NVIDIA. I've had both before and can't really tell the difference. Besides game makers support both so I don't really see a need to favor one over the other.

So whats newer than the 9250 thats PCI standard? And what are the equivalent NVIDIA cards?

Thanks for the help. Again no rush just feeling the field.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

when my AGP card fried and I had to mail it back to ATI for repair, I went to several of the local PC/electronics/office stores looking for the cheapest PCI video card I could find.
there were none.
I wound up getting a $35.00 AGP to use until ATI mailed mine back to me.
It might be time for a new mobo...

[yoda313]

?? Thanks but I don't have ANY AGP slots.... ---- And I don't really want to get a new motherboard.

[Supreme2k]

Here's a few (linked from Pricewatch.com)

[jagabo]

This is probably the most powerful PCI graphics card:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/workstation/cre_pro/products/parhelia/pci256mb.cfm

It cost ~US$700

[yoda313]

Thanks supreme2k and jagabo.

That matrox is a little out of my price range

[jagabo]

NewEgg.com shows 41 choices:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2000380048+1069609642&Subca...ice=&maxPrice=

[jkleslie]

I don't see the point. PCI video is going to be limited to 133MB/s (limitation of the bus) that is shared by all your other PCI devices, as well. You may do marginally better with an upgraded graphics card, but I doubt it would be worth the cost.

For instance, any game that pulls alot of data from your HDD, is played online, and also is halfway graphically intensive - is more than likely going to saturate your PCI bus. If you're doing that now, you won't be upgrading...you'll just be spending money as both are hitting the same wall.

This is all considering we're talking about a standard 32-bit/33MHz PCI bus.