Graphics card question

[Samson]

I am updating an old Dell Dimension 4600i, as cheaply as possible (for free basically!). So far I have upped the RAM to 2GB added a Sony DVD writer and have been given an ATI Radeon 9250 128MB AGP graphics card. OK here's my Question....

The FSB on the Dell is 533Mhz and so my pc3200 DDR400 RAM underclocks to 333Mhz, the ATI card is DDR400 so will this underclock automatically to 333Mhz too, or should I use something like the ATITool to do this?

Also I'm unsure as to what would be the best AGP aperture to set in the BIOS, I have plenty of RAM so would the max of 256MB be better than the deafault 128MB.

Thanks.

[Samson]

I think I've answered my own question 

Out on my bike this afternoon it hit me! The memory on the graphics card is not controlled by the CPU, but the GPU and therefore not governed by the FSB speed of 533Mhz. I ran ATITool and it confirms the memory speed at 200Mhz, DDR400, so apologies for my "blonde" moment!

I'd still like to know what AGP aperture would be best for me to use? Given that my RAM is slower than the graphics card memory, would my idea of setting the max at 256MB be wrong, and I'd be better off setting to the minimum 32MB, or just leave it at the default 128MB.

Thanks again.

[Shane]

AGP Aperture memory will not be used until your video card's on-board memory is running low. That means it will usually not impact your gaming performance because developers are trying hard to not exceed the on-board memory limits.

I always max out the AGP Aperture on those older systems

Shane

[Samson]

Thanks Shane, I will do what you suggest 

[Shane]

No problem

Shane