Any latest Graphics card will suit my mobo MSI K8T Neo2?

My mobo is MSI K8T Neo2. And I am current having Radeon 9600 Graphics card. I can use any latest graphics card in this mobo or only specific ones will suit my mobo?
Thanks.

The MSI K8T Neo2 has an AGP graphics interface, the most modern video cards use the PCI Express x16 interface. PCI Express is NOT to be confused with PCI, of which your board has a few, PCI cards and PCI Express cards are completely different and are not compatible with one another.

AGP is essentially a dead slot but ATI has put some effort into bringing fast cards to the interface, but Nvidia gave up as sales were nothing special. If you want a faster card, you have a few options the cheapest of which would be the 9800 pro which is a good bit faster but its hardly modern. The x1600 series or 7600 series do exist, but are not really worth it.
What you want to find is the Nvidia Geforce 7800GS, ATI Radeon x1950 pro, or the ATI Radeon HD3850. Price wise the 7800GS and x1950 pro have fallen from most retailer shelves, but you may be able to find em on ebay, going for aroung $100-$150. But the fastest and most modern video card you can get right now is the ATI Radeon HD3850, which can be found HERE on newegg for $175, but drops to $155 after mail in rebate. Performance wise this can easily be twice as fast as the x1950pro or 7800GS, and for more modern games its definitely the card of choice.

But really all these cards are so far ahead of your 9600pro, damn near anything would be a good upgrade from where you are. No use spending more than you need on an aging 939/AGP platform. Your board supports dual core processors, so if you are not already using a socket 939 Athlon64 X2 you may want to consider upgrading too one to avoid any potential bottlenecks with adding a faster video card than your processor can handle. This of course depends on your resolution, as resolutions like 1024x768 or 1280x1024 are quite cpu dependent, while higher resolutions like 1680x1050, 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 are much more video card intensive, and the processor you use is less important than how powerful the video card is.

Hope that helps.

The cards you mentioned like Nvidia Geforce 7800GS, ATI Radeon x1950 pro, or the ATI Radeon HD3850. Do they have AGP or PCI slot provision? Or do they only suit in PCI express slots? And I guess I can put any of these cards in my mobo K8T Neo2 ?
It will be better if it suits both PCI as well as PCI express slots because if i change my mobo in future I can use the same video card for new mobo also.
Please suggest. Thanks.

those cards I mentioned are available in PCI Express and AGP only, NOT pci. PCI Express and PCI are VERY different.

The ATI Radeon HD3850 that I posted the link too, that is the fastest AGP card you can get. Your motherboard will not take PCI Express, you do not have a PCI Express slot. The graphics card slot you have is AGP. You need an AGP card.

If you want a PCI Express card, you will need a new motherboard. There are motherboards that take your processor (socket 939) and your memory (184 pin DDR), but your K8T Neo2 can only take AGP video cards.

Fine.. But I can't see the product HD3850 in ATI site.. I can only see HD3800

And also X1950 specs says PCI express only. Isnt there AGP supported card? If so can you please provide the link from ATI site. Thanks.

X1650 under Features it says.. "AGP 8x configurations also supported with AGP-PCI-E external bridge chip"

So the same card can be used in both AGP slot mobo as well as PCI-E slot mobo? And is this a good card? Not much of gaming purpose. Just for general usage only.

If you're purchasing a card for "general purpose" only, then you can stop looking at performance graphics cards right now. If you're THAT worried about migrating your video card to your new motherboard when you do upgrade, I would recommend even buying a standard PCI card. You can purchase the HD2400 Pro for $54.99 after the $10 rebate, and not only would it be faster than your 9600 in games, support DX 10 and of course SM3, it would also support Vista's Aero Interface and have HD Video Playback.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16814131082

And I am not upgrading my card now... Suppose if my card fails then I am planning to buy a suitable card which can be used in the current mobo and also in new latest mobo (incase old mobo fails and I had to buy new one)

But X1650 says "AGP 8x configurations also supported with AGP-PCI-E external bridge chip".
So will this card be suitable for both AGP as well as PCE-E slot mobo?
And if so, does the card come with that external bridge chip?

what that means is that the x1650 graphics processor (the chip itself) can use a bridge chip, so that the graphics processor (which is designed for pci express) can communicate properly over the AGP bus. The HD3850 I mentioned earlier uses the same bridge chip to do the same thing. All the modern graphics processors will require a bridge chip to communicate over AGP.

If your card dies, I would suggest buying a use 9600 or 9800 series card off ebay, as those go for $20 and it'll last you till you upgrade later. Buying a PCI video card is not the best solution, although flawlez is correct in saying that general purpose the pci hd2400 is a perfect card, it is low power, low heat, no noise, and provides all the nice features a modern video card needs. It will be faster for most if not all games, but lets not get too ahead of ourselves. The hd2400 is not a power house card, if you intend to be playing games at 1280x1024 or above, you want a more powerful card. But yes, anything your 9600 pro can do, the hd2400 pro can do it better.

*edit*
and to clarify, the cards use an external bridge (it is built onto the card, it is not something you can add or remove), the card will come in pci express (native with no bridge chip needed) or AGP (with the bridge chip solderd to the card). An AGP x1650 will not with in a PCI Express slot, nor a regular PCI slot. A PCI card will not with in a PCI Express slot. A PCI Express card will not work in an AGP slot.

Stang,

I know the HD2400 Pro is RARELY the optimal solution for ANYONE looking to purchase a new video card. However, I based my response mostly on these two points that he mentioned previously. It appears playing games on the computer is of little to no concern.