Which AGP card for oldish Motherboard - Advice please.

JesseJames_2

Just refurbished my older PC and would also like to use it for gaming.

Spec.
Dual boot XP32 / Windows 7 Ultimate
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2
Memory - 1500MB
CPU - Athlon Barton 3200 400MHz
Drives - Sata Raid 0 - 2 x 500GB (running around 95MB/sec)
Graphics AGP - NVidia FX5500

Recently got some of the free/discounted games from Steam/Microsoft so the family can play, but the graphics card could be better I think (3.0 in graphics in Win 7) - a bit strobey and lacks in definition compared my main PC)

Not sure what card to go for - there is not much AGP cards to choose from that I can see - any advice on what to get would be great.

AJ84

You're going to be a bit stretched finding a decent AGP card this day and age but plenty on eBay and the likes I guess.

Also like many things old, they go up in price the older they get in some cases so what you could get now in AGP could get you double the memory/speed in PCI-E

What about something like SAPPHIRE 100228L Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready Video Card?

Not sure if it still is the case but it was one of the fastest available in the AGP range

spannerzone

Best AGP I've seen recently on Ebay is an Ati 3650 agp or rare 3850 agp - I read there were some Ati 4x50 series in AGP but good luck finding one!

JesseJames_2

Thanks for your input, AJ.

None on Ebay, just missed one for £35 with a few others around £50-£60 earlier.
I did see other cheaper Radeons with DDR2 memory - is that much different in performance?

That card seems to be 7.0 according to what I saw (better than my main PC)
Aero Graphics: 7,0 (ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP)
Game Graphics: 7,0 (ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP)

Decisions - Buy another type and turns out to be about the same performance as what I have.
Or wait on Ebay for one of these and find out I need another PSU or it does not fit (looks quite long).

Cheers

JesseJames_2

spannerzone wrote: »

Best AGP I've seen recently on Ebay is an Ati 3650 agp or rare 3850 agp - I read there were some Ati 4x50 series in AGP but good luck finding one!

Hi Spanner
What is the performance like with the 3650 / 4x50

Ebuyer have them - http://www.ebuyer.com/search?q=agp+ati&x=0&y=0
Since it has only cost me £15 (memory) to put this together (win7 excluded), then I'm loathe to buy one if it's not much better than what I have.

aliEnRIK

Whatever graphics card you get, I cant see it making much difference as your cpu will REALLY be holding it back

aliEnRIK

Scratch what I said, you were talking about the FSB, not the actual processor speed

spannerzone

Can't comment on the 3650 as I've not used one but I'd look at the Tomshardware vga charts
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-2008-q1/3DMark06-v1.0.2-HDR-SM3.0-Score,538.html

(on the right you can select the "See other Graphics Cards performance charts")

The CPU will also be a bit of a bottleneck these days if playing latest games.... so you have to weigh up whether it's worth spending much (or anything) as the rest of the PC is now fairly low spec compared to latest gaming rigs... my pc is in the same situation really.... 3 years old with Core2 duo at 2Ghz, and slowish graphics card Ati2600xt so hard to know if it's worth upgrading or start over!

aliEnRIK

My old computers got a similar spec cpu. Games will definitely run better with a better graphics card (Assuming your power supplys up to it). But its pointless getting a top spec one as your cpu will bottleneck

JesseJames_2

cheers Spanner/AlienRik

I'll take note of the CPU bottleneck.

I think I'll go for the Radeon 3650 instead of the 3850.
Might be able to get one for £25/£30 on Ebay if I'm lucky.

And also overclock the CPU a notch or 2.
Plus I now have it running dual channelled by shifting from Dimm3 to Dimm4 (I read the manual!)

james123

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-HD4650-1GB-Graphics-Card/dp/B002KTZRF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293453053&sr=8-1


Is a 1gb 4650, i had the same card (although PCIE version) and it happily played COD4 , MW2, Civilisation 5 etc, but it did struggle with blak ops :S which is surprising because i think it looks rubbish in comparison to MW2, anyway,

£60 from amazon.

Also doesnt need extra power connectors as some heavy cards, just runs straight from the slot.


hth


Jim