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Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:52 am
by Apoptosis
Millions of Integrated-GFX Mainboards with only PCI slots ready for GeForce 8 Series boost.

Albatron Retrotechnology -"PCI" graphics alive and kickin' with GeForceĀ® 8 Series GPUs!
Albatron Technology recently unveiled three new "PCI" graphics cards at Computex 2008. You read it right - "PCI" and not "PCI Express"! The PCI8600GT-256X, the PCI8500GT-256X and the PCI8400GS-256 are all VGAs that retrofit recent GeForce 8 Series graphics onto older PCI technology. These cards all offer a significant graphics boost along with dual monitor capabilities for an entire generation of integrated-graphics, PCI-only mainboards.

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Millions of existing Mainboards without AGP or PCI Express

It's a little known fact that there have been millions of Mainboards mass produced in the last 7 years with AGP and PCI Express slots left off in favor of integrated graphics only. Although these mainboards have the traditional PCI-slots, they have been deprived of a chance to upgrade to the latest graphics technology which is almost exclusively for PCI Express these days. The best alternative to experience the latest graphics was for a complete systems overhaul - that is, until now.

Albatron has answered the call with its PCI based VGA cards featuring recent NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series graphics technology. These cards allow these mainboards a chance to make a significant jump from integrated graphics without investing time and money in a whole new system.

Add in a PCI graphics card, add on 2nd, 3rd or 4th monitor!

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As mentioned, these PCI graphics cards, with their multiple video adapters, can allow a system, with an integrated GFX mainboard, to configure dual monitors. But it can also give single-PCIe-VGA mainboards (can do up to 2 monitors only) a chance to add on a third or fourth monitor - who needs it you say? You'd be surprised at how you can make use of the extra real estate when you have 3 or 4 monitors. There are applications that can make use of more than 2 monitors such as flight simulation and tracking multiple stock exchanges. But from a more practical perspective, imagine watching a DVD in one screen, browsing the internet in another and doing your work on a third, all without shuffling between overlapping pages or searching your task bar for a program that you have open. Most recent VGA cards can get you dual monitors at best, but add on that third monitor with a PCI graphics card and you've got one very wide virtual panel.

Integrated Graphics vs. PCI 8 Series Graphics - It's all in the numbers!

Preliminary tests have the PCI 8 Series VGA cards significantly outperforming Integrated Graphics by up to 1329%, according to 3DMark2006 scores.

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The tests in the chart above were performed on an Intel 915G MB testing the 3 PCI cards separately and testing once with integrated graphics only - CPU Pentium-4 520 (2.8 GHz), DDRII 800 1GB, Windows XP.

Other goodies!


These cards are all low-profile cards that make them easily adaptable to smaller cases. The PCI8600GT and PCI8500GT additionally boost performance with DDR III memory and come with HDMI connectors. All three cards come with DVI and TV-Out connectors.

Retrotechnology rescues misfit mainboards, breathing new life into millions

Integrated graphics mainboards without AGP/PCIe slots are the misfits of the new graphics age, severely limited in graphics upgrade options. However, the fact remains, that these boards are still capable, sturdy and abundant in large numbers. Albatron's PCI 8 Series VGA cards come to the rescue with three great new cards that allow for an effortless upgrade with great savings!

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:02 am
by DMB2000uk
An 8600GT on PCI!!!

As expected looks like they are being crippled pretty bad, don't 8600GT's usually get around 4000 3dmarks?

Dan

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:04 am
by bubba
Dell was/is notorious for leaving off the vid card slot in some of their really cheap systems.

I bought a 6200 PCI card couple months back for an old Dell here at work they wanted a large wide screen monitor on, but didn't want to replace the box.

Personal use, it would have to be VERY cheap not to warrant a new mobo.

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:09 am
by Bwall
Yeah but does it blend?? ....erm...I mean...how does it fold?

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:25 am
by skier
i like this plan :) as long as they don't try a 8800 series, keep it low end, high end PCI would be very very silly

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 2:05 pm
by gwolfman
very interesting. I hadn't seen anything on PCI for a very long time

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 3:19 pm
by hsew
I have an FX5500 PCI. If I upgrade to this will I get a boost in performance?

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 3:31 pm
by DMB2000uk
Undoubtedly ^_^

Dan

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 3:33 pm
by Apoptosis
hsew wrote:I have an FX5500 PCI. If I upgrade to this will I get a boost in performance?
oh yeah... and if you run vista you'd even get DX10!!

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:53 pm
by Zertz
Performance will be even worse if you have other PCI devices... since PCI is shared bus, unlike PCI-E.

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:03 pm
by DMB2000uk
I did wonder about using these to fold briefly, as you can fit lots in a cheap mobo with PCI, but drew the same conclusion.

Dan

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:08 pm
by Sovereign
I'm sorry.

FAIL.

PCI needs to die. Even for soundcards. PCI-E's exclusive bandwidth nature makes it far superior for graphics solutions, not to mention the fact that PCI-E is far wider than PCI ever will be.

PCI-E for Prez '08! :)

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 5:00 pm
by DMB2000uk
But if you are stuck with PCI then these are your best bet.

Dan

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 5:07 pm
by Zertz
DMB2000uk wrote:But if you are stuck with PCI then these are your best bet.

Dan
Theres always AGP... then if you don't have AGP.. it's probably just not worth it :roll:

Re: Albatron Ships PCI Based GeForce 8 Series Cards For Old PCs

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:22 am
by bubba
Zertz wrote:Theres always AGP... then if you don't have AGP.. it's probably just not worth it :roll:
Was to my work. They felt the ~$100 for a PCI video card, granted it was a GF6200 at the time, for the front desk to have a large widescreen monitor was better than buying a whole new box for $500-600 and a day of my time for transferring all the programs and data to the new box.

The box it went in didn't have an AGP slot, contacts for it were there, but the socket wasn't. So there are applications for PCI tech that is non-gaming related.