AGP Graphics cards - opinions welcomed within

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zombiebeat

[H]ard|Gawd
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One of my buddies wants to upgrade his graphics card, he's still on AGP and I'm not sure what's the best on this format anymore.

I've suggested checking out:

ATI Sapphire Technology Radeon X1950Pro
and
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS

Anyone have any info/opinions on the best solution for this format?

He's not a bleeding edge gamer, he just wants to squeeze a bit more out his current system, so no overclocking! ;) :D

His specs are:
AMD Athlon (tm) XP 2200+
1.70 GHz, 512 Mb of RAM

Thats as much as I could get as he's not very tech savvy and I'm having trouble explaining to him how to use Crucials system scanner to identify his mobo :p
 
How much is your friend willing to spend? For his setup right now he shouldn't spend that much on a new graphics card. Those cards you mentioned averages $250. He should spend less than $200 like $150-$200 at the most. Those cards you mentioned would be more ideal with a little faster cpu/mobo setup such as a Athlon 64 system or Pentium 4 system. What graphics card does he have now? I have an ATI X850 Pro AGP card and that is good in running Call Of Duty 2. Also, one of my friends has a BFG 6600 GT OC card on a system similar to your friends and he's happy with it. Of course, these are older cards but, they perform and if you can find these online these should be cheap. If not, ATI X1600 series or Nvidias 7600 series cards outta do it for less than $200. Save the extra money and invest in an all around better PC later.

PS. bump up his ram to at least 1 gig would help also.
 
HardwareGuru said:
How much is your friend willing to spend? For his setup right now he shouldn't spend that much on a new graphics card. Those cards you mentioned averages $250. He should spend less than $200 like $150-$200 at the most. Those cards you mentioned would be more ideal with a little faster cpu/mobo setup such as a Athlon 64 system or Pentium 4 system. What graphics card does he have now? I have an ATI X850 Pro AGP card and that is good in running Call Of Duty 2. Also, one of my friends has a BFG 6600 GT OC card on a system similar to your friends and he's happy with it. Of course, these are older cards but, they perform and if you can find these online these should be cheap. If not, ATI X1600 series or Nvidias 7600 series cards outta do it for less than $200. Save the extra money and invest in an all around better PC later.

PS. bump up his ram to at least 1 gig would help also.
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Thanks for the reply HardwareGuru, I'm not sure how much he's willing to spend.

His request was "I have a GeForce FX 5700 Ultra and I want a graphics card that is better than this one", not very specific.

I'll ask him Tomorrow (or Today as it is now in the UK) what sort of figure he had in mind, as I've said it's late here and time for me to turn in but it'll update the thread when I find out.

Thanks again.
 
Look into the 7600GS/GT. Both are great cards and you can find them for well under $200 (the GS is a bit easier to find), and it should give him a rather large performance boost without seriously bottlenecking anything. I would not advise that he spends anything more than $200 or so since with a computer as old as his, he'll be needing a whole new rig by the end of the year.
 
Those are over kill for his CPU. I posted in this once but it got removed during update to forums. I have a 9800 pro and a AMD Athlon +1800 clocked at 1.8ghz and my 9800 pro is bottleneck quite abit. X1600/X800 or 6600/6800 should be more then enough. I wouldn't try going any higher as it would be a waste and just bottleneck his system. Infact he just should get a new computer. His CPU isn't going to hold up in games soon as mine struggles with no background process running(from the physics in todays games).
 
pArTy said:
Those are over kill for his CPU. I posted in this once but it got removed during update to forums. I have a 9800 pro and a AMD Athlon +1800 clocked at 1.8ghz and my 9800 pro is bottleneck quite abit. X1600/X800 or 6600/6800 should be more then enough. I wouldn't try going any higher as it would be a waste and just bottleneck his system. Infact he just should get a new computer. His CPU isn't going to hold up in games soon as mine struggles with no background process running(from the physics in todays games).
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agreed even my 9800pro was bottlenecked by my old 2400xp I would tell him to go for either a 9800xt if you can find one, or a 6600gt.
 
The Geforce FX5700 Ultra is not fast at all. I have an FX5200 I took from my brothers Sony computer and ran 3D mark 2005 on a XP2500+ overclocked to an XP3000+ and the 3D mark 2005 score with default settings was pretty pathetic. I got like 600 points off of it. The 5700 probably will get a 1,000 - 1,500 score. I also have a Radeon 9800 Pro and it got like 2,333. With a driver update it went up to 2,663. An Nvidia 6600 GT will easily go over 3,000+ on the 3D mark 2005. The 9800Pro scored higher on my brothers 3.0 gig P4 than on my XP2500+ overclocked so...cpu plays a role with the higher end cards. But yah, $200, $250 is too much. That is more than the value of his CPU/MOBO/RAM system.
 
HardwareGuru said:
The Geforce FX5700 Ultra is not fast at all. I have an FX5200 I took from my brothers Sony computer and ran 3D mark 2005 on a XP2500+ overclocked to an XP3000+ and the 3D mark 2005 score with default settings was pretty pathetic. I got like 600 points off of it. The 5700 probably will get a 1,000 - 1,500 score. I also have a Radeon 9800 Pro and it got like 2,333. With a driver update it went up to 2,663. An Nvidia 6600 GT will easily go over 3,000+ on the 3D mark 2005. The 9800Pro scored higher on my brothers 3.0 gig P4 than on my XP2500+ overclocked so...cpu plays a role with the higher end cards. But yah, $200, $250 is too much. That is more than the value of his CPU/MOBO/RAM system.
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I think the difference would be bigger than that. The FX5700 Ultra sucks, but the FX5200 sucks A LOT.
 
A used 6600GT would do well in that system. That would be as high as I would go though, anything else is a waste and AGP is dated. He will see a very nice increase with the 6600gt though, well worth the money IMO.
 
Thanks for all your replied guys, it's been extremely helpful.

I've recommended upgrading his RAM to one gig and spoke to him about costs.

He's willing to spend as long as it's the right card and i've explained about the bottlenecking issue with his current proc'. He's quite happy swapping graphics cards but putting a new system together would bring him out in a cold sweat, so understandably new proc', mobo etc is a step too far both financially and logistically for him.

What I've done is give him the list of the cards mentioned and told him to choose which one suits his pocket best, though personally I'm leaning to the 6600GT after all your input.

These are the games he wants to play:

Originally posted by Obi
The games that I want all this kit to play are the Battlefield series..

I play Battlefield 1942 and 2142.

I also play Modern Combat on the PS2.

I want to be able to play 2142 online on the PC the way I play Modern Combat online on the Playstation.
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Thanks once again to you all. :)
 
I'd lean towards buying a used 6600GT as well as another stick of 512. Shouldn't be more than ~$100 total. Have a look for vanilla 6800s as well, but as others have said it isn't worth spending much more than $100 total on that system until he finally decides to put it to pasture.
 
If you can find one, get your hands on a X800XT/Pro. I have the X800XTPE in my P4 AGP system and its PLENTY fast for the games that are played on it.
 
The high end agp cards are a waste of money. Its almost better just to upgrade your motherboard and buying the pcie card. For the price of a 7800gs agp, you could get a cheap amd64 939 or pentumD motherboard and processor, with a nice midrange video card, which would be a whole lot better.

If you have to get an agp card though, I would just get a nvidia 6600gt or 7600gs, and spend the rest on ram. Anything more is really not worth it.
 
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