Video card for MSI K9MM-V

[Paul Homer]

I am currently in the process of upgrading the above named Motherboard. Any suggestions on a compatible video card? I will be upgrading Win 7 Ultimate in the near future (32 bit) DON'T suggest anything for Windows 8. I tried the preview beta and it's another one of Microsofts rush jobs like 95, ME and Vista. I'd like to have the maximum amount of memory I can find.

[ShyguyXPC]

Then if you want the maximum amount of memory you can find, you'll want to go with 64-bit Windows 7, so you don't lose access to your System RAM.


Your board only supports up to 2GB RAM, and its easy enough to find a 2GB Video card these days, with 32-bit Windows you'll lose some of your 2GB max RAM.

(Between RAM, and Caching memory from Hard drives, DVD Drives, CPU, etc, and the GPU memory, Windows 32-bit can only address 4GB total, so if you end up with a 2GB Video card, the CPU, and Caching memory will be deducted from the 2GB RAM and thats how much RAM you'll have)

Don't know why you think you need as much memory as possible on the video card, since memory size doesn't mean squat on how powerful the card is, though for more powerful higher end cards more memory does help with higher end resolutions, and/or multiple displays.

With Windows 7, its recommended to have AT LEAST 2GB of RAM to run decently, not even factoring in for the needs of other software.



Windows 8 isn't really a rush job like 95, or Vista, but it is almost a whole new experience. ME... well there was nothing Rushed about it, since it was 95/98 at its core, but it was bloated and not needed with XP right around the corner.



Your Motherboard only supports AGP cards, so your not going to find much, AGP is a dead slot.

the BEST cards you can get for AGP was ATI's Radeon HD 4650 and 4670 cards, or a prior gen Radeon HD 3850.

most of these were only 1GB cards, so you'd be fine with Windows 32-bit, but, your 2GB of RAM will be pushing it.

Honestly, your board is quite outdated, and you'd be better off getting something newer and more updated.

an AGP card, the best for your board, will set you back more than it costs for a PCI Express Variant.

and just not worth it IMO.

Newegg.com - MSI K9MM-V AM2 VIA K8M800 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

4650 AGP: Newegg.com - HIS H465F1GHA Radeon HD 4650 1GB 128-bit DDR3 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready Video Card

4670 AGP: Newegg.com - HIS IceQ H467QS1GHA Radeon HD 4670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready Video Card

Couple of Refurbished 4650's for PCIe: Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics Cards, Radeon HD 4000 series, Radeon HD 4650

Few 4670's for PCIe refurbished: Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics Cards, Radeon HD 4000 series, Radeon HD 4670

since the Radeon HD 4000 series is 3 generations behind already, their harder and harder to find, coupled with the Dead AGP slot its a losing battle.



You'd also need to make sure your power supply is capable of running a newer card, you'd want to have a good 300-400W PSU from a reputable & quality brand name to run the cards on your system.

your Mobo has limited CPU upgrades as well, so no chance of running anything faster than the max it will support, so no Triple, Quad, Hex or Octo core support, older DDR2 RAM which is getting pricier since its been on its way out for 2 years now.

Via no longer makes mainstream consumer motherboard chipsets, and hasn't for years, so updated support for your board is going to be harder and harder to come by as the years go on.

Heck the MSI website doesn't even have Specific Windows 7 Drivers for the chipset for this motheboard, its only Vista 32 & 64-bit drivers, which might work, but then again might not.

MSI USA – Mainboard - K9MM-V


Depending on what you plan on using this for, I really wouldn't bother upgrading much if anything on it with all those cons working against you, for not much these days you can get a decent new system, for what it would cost otherwise.



But for a couple/few hundred you could put something like this together, if you have some current SATA Hard drives (since this board doesn't have an IDE port)

Newegg.com - Intel Celeron G530 Sandy Bridge 2.4GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80623G530

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR H61MLB LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Newegg.com - Pareema 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model MD313C81609L1

Newegg.com - SPARKLE SXT4302048S3LNM GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 2GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Video Card

Newegg.com - LG DVD Burner 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH24NS90 - CD / DVD Burners

Add a SATA HDD, reuse the old PC's case, get a new PSU, something like this would be fine,

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Elite 460 RS-460-PSAR-J3 460W ATX12V V2.31 Power Supply

But the list above would only cost under $250, not including the OS (Win 7 64-bit, add another $100 for that).

the CPU and RAM would Blow ANYTHING out of the water that could be had on your current board and system, the GPU is at least comparable in performance, if not slightly better than the Radeon 4670 which is the most you could get on your system. Even the 2GB of Memory on that GT 430 is wasted more or less, its just not that powerful of a card to even need that much.

And the 4GB Stick of DDR3 is faster, better bandwidth, and twice what your current board can support, plus you'd have an open slot for more... coupled together with the price, its a no brainer at this point.

And its all Windows 7 capable/compatible all out of the box.

[RicheemxX]

DON'T suggest anything for Windows 8. I tried the preview beta and it's another one of Microsofts rush jobs like 95, ME and Vista.

Sorry statements like these just make me LOL. For starters anything that would run on W7 will run W8, its not like there is some W8 specific hardware out there. Secondly, you are judging a pre-beta preview something that is not even close to the final product. That said I personally don't like the tiles and new UI so I won't buy it but I saw nothing about it that was technically bad.

[Paul Homer]

Well, I checked with MSI after a "friend" stuck me with a couple of 800 MHz 2 gig sticks. According to them, since I kept up with the BIOS upgrades including the final one (1.7) the board will support 4 gig. All I can say to support this is that BIOS, POST, Win7, and windows memory diagnostic all report it as there and utilized. As for upgrading to a Duo core, the board also supports the AMD Athlon II X2 up to 3.1 GHZ. To be honest, other than the DDR3 the Duo-core are as outdated as my current board. If you check around you can pick up a AMD hex with everything except the processor and RAM for under $200 and they support up to 32 Gig, so anything less woulds kind of be a waste and you can pick up an Octo board on Ebay with 8 Gig for $349.

[Paul Homer]

Pardon my skepticism about W8. I realize it's a beta, but to be honest, I can't say as I liked anything about it. And as for the "rush job", it's due out in January so they haven't put nearly as much time in it as they did 7 or XP. Part of it is from my experience with Vista. It was a bigger piece of junk than DOS 4, which was so bad that after 1 attempted fix and software companies writing detection software that kicked you out and told you to " reinstall DOS 3.3 and reinstall", Microsoft Tech would flat out tell you to reinstall 3.3 and wait for DOS 5, then procede to get your shipping infomation and send you a free copy if you needed one. They should have done the same with Vista. W8 has serious hang and crash issues on older systems and IE 10 hangs worse than 9, which I fixed with Firefox. It's an attempt to be all things to all systems and a poor one at that. The GUI problems could be fixed in a similar way to the initall releases of 95 where they kept the fileman option. We need he option to install the things we need for our systems and not what we don't need. And the requirement of a Windows Live account should be done away with. Though I've had Hotmail since 2001, it was my choice.

[ShyguyXPC]

Well, I checked with MSI after a "friend" stuck me with a couple of 800 MHz 2 gig sticks. According to them, since I kept up with the BIOS upgrades including the final one (1.7) the board will support 4 gig. All I can say to support this is that BIOS, POST, Win7, and windows memory diagnostic all report it as there and utilized. As for upgrading to a Duo core, the board also supports the AMD Athlon II X2 up to 3.1 GHZ. To be honest, other than the DDR3 the Duo-core are as outdated as my current board. If you check around you can pick up a AMD hex with everything except the processor and RAM for under $200 and they support up to 32 Gig, so anything less woulds kind of be a waste and you can pick up an Octo board on Ebay with 8 Gig for $349.

I'm not sure what your going on about with Duo Core's, vs AMD Athlon II X2's.

But they're BOTH Dual cores.


and there is no CPU with the name Duo Core.

There were Intel Core Duo's, but these are not even possible to be run on that system.

There are Intel Core 2 Duo's, same story, different CPU Socket, Not Possible.


AMD's CPU's for Dual Cores has always carried the X2 Designation.

As to your board specifically, no it doesn't support an Athlon II X2, it only supports Athlon X2.

Its a socket AM2, for Athlon II you need an AM3 Socket board, there were a couple of AM2+ variants made for the "II" series as well, but most were Socket AM3.

Here's your CPU Support list, see for yourself: MSI USA – Mainboard - K9MM-V



Not sure what you mean by other than the DDR3 the Duo Core are as outdated as your current board. I hope your not saying DDR3 is or that your board uses DDR3, as it only uses DDR2.


I have NO Idea what your going on here about:

"If you check around you can pick up a AMD hex with everything except the processor and RAM for under $200 and they support up to 32 Gig, so anything less woulds kind of be a waste and you can pick up an Octo board on Ebay with 8 Gig for $349."


An AMD "Hex" IS the CPU.

as to an Octo board with 8GB for $350?

What are you specifically saying, as none of this makes any sense.

You can get a Decent AMD 8 Core supporting Motherboard for around $100, 8GB of DDR3 RAM for $50 or less, and an AMD 8 Core CPU for around $200

Newegg.com - ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS3 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M1A1333C9

Newegg.com - AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8150FRGUBOX

Grand Total:* $342.97

[Paul Homer]

I'm NOT saying DDR3 is out of date. I'm saying why buy a new board for and out of date processor that my current board supports. Spending any more than $50 on a dual core system is a waste of money When for the price that was quoted by you for a dual core system I can get a hex.

[ShyguyXPC]

um, you do realize that initial dual core setup was damn near an entire PC?

For $250.


but your still not making sense in what your typing.

"Spending any more than $50 on a dual core system is a waste of money"

$50 for a Dual Core PROCESSOR maybe, but for a system?

yeah, for nearly what it costs for that entire system you could probably afford a 6 Core or 8 Core Processor, but as was said your Current Motherboard WILL NOT support anything more than a Dual core.

You would have to get a new Motherboard & RAM to go along with the new CPU... but my list above for the Dual core also included a Video card, new DVD Drive, Power Supply, as well, not including a new SATA Hard drive if you need one, or the Operating System or a New case.

as it was, I posted 3 parts early this morning just for the 8 Core and Mobo and RAM your looking at nearly $350, add in the other needed parts and your looking at over $450-500 at least.

And if its Bang for your buck you want, depending on what your actually doing on the PC, an Intel CPU might be better suited anyways, as in most cases, Intels Lower end Current Gen Core i3 Dual Cores match or Beat AMD's FX series Quad, some of them can nearly match the 6 core, and just about any and all of Intel's Quad's at least beat the AMD Six core, and in most cases, even beat the 8 core, unless its a situation where all 8 cores are actually being used effectively.

[Paul Homer]

um, you do realize that initial dual core setup was damn near an entire PC?

For $250.


but your still not making sense in what your typing.

"Spending any more than $50 on a dual core system is a waste of money"

$50 for a Dual Core PROCESSOR maybe, but for a system?

yeah, for nearly what it costs for that entire system you could probably afford a 6 Core or 8 Core Processor, but as was said your Current Motherboard WILL NOT support anything more than a Dual core.

You would have to get a new Motherboard & RAM to go along with the new CPU... but my list above for the Dual core also included a Video card, new DVD Drive, Power Supply, as well, not including a new SATA Hard drive if you need one, or the Operating System or a New case.

as it was, I posted 3 parts early this morning just for the 8 Core and Mobo and RAM your looking at nearly $350, add in the other needed parts and your looking at over $450-500 at least.

And if its Bang for your buck you want, depending on what your actually doing on the PC, an Intel CPU might be better suited anyways, as in most cases, Intels Lower end Current Gen Core i3 Dual Cores match or Beat AMD's FX series Quad, some of them can nearly match the 6 core, and just about any and all of Intel's Quad's at least beat the AMD Six core, and in most cases, even beat the 8 core, unless its a situation where all 8 cores are actually being used effectively.

Yes, I realize that the price was for an almost complete PC. Check out these links and prices and you'll see why I think anything over $50 for a dual core is wasting your money.


NEW AMD FX 6100 3.3 GHz Hex-Core, Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P MOBO, 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM 0730143300926 | eBay


The only drawback is that the board only supports 16 meg. And considering I can get a 620 watt PS for 39.99 plus S&H, I'd say that's much better than your dual core setup and comes in under the comparable Intell processor ( i7 37705 3.1 Gig Hex core) alone. The cheapest I could find was $309. I'm sure that any performance difference isn't worth the cost. And since I can still use my 2TB HDD and SATA DVD combo drive and my case, kind of another no brainer.