Video card advice needed

M

Montez

So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Long story short; I have a motherboard with an AGP slot, and I have no interest in upgrading my MB or CPU at this time. I was looking around and notice that there are still Geforce 7900/7950 cards being made for AGP. I currently have a 6600GT card - would it be worthwhile to upgrade it to a 7900/7950, or possibly some equivalent ATi card?

I browsed around a few hardware review sites, and benchmarks seem to indicate that it would be a huge increase in framerate and also let me turn on those shiny graphics options that I always avoid; however, it's hard to find information on whether the versions they are reviewing are AGP or PCI-E, or even if it really makes a difference. Plus, I have a hard time trusting a chart of FPS rates over personal experience or knowledge. Any advice?
 
A while ago I looked at upgrading a rig of mine that uses AGP. Being the ATi fanboi I am I went with the X1600 as it was the best AGP card available at that time. Ive since migrated to PCI-E and have not payed much attention to the AGP market. Keep in mind, this was early this year so, its possible not much has changed.

Good card though, ran CS Source with all hardware settings set to max (baring the ones that conflict with one another DX10 cards are supposed to fix that prob).
 
Go with the Geforce 7800GTX. Not the newest, but relatively cheap and good performance.
 
Montez said:
Long story short; I have a motherboard with an AGP slot, and I have no interest in upgrading my MB or CPU at this time. I was looking around and notice that there are still Geforce 7900/7950 cards being made for AGP. I currently have a 6600GT card - would it be worthwhile to upgrade it to a 7900/7950, or possibly some equivalent ATi card?
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The "equivalent" ATI card is either the X1950 PRO or X1950 XT, depending on exactly what type of 7900/7950 you're talking about, and in both cases, the ATI card is a better performer at the same price point.

As far as whether it's worth it, that depends. Are you dissatisfied with the way your rig can run games as it is? If so, a better card will certainly help. However, you have to keep in mind that there's more to a computer (even running games) than just the video card. If you have less than a gigabyte of RAM, I'd recommend upping that first. Also, the more your video card outclasses your CPU, the less benefit you'll see, as the CPU can become a large bottleneck to performance.

If you're really anxious to increase your rig's performance for gaming, then sure, the new card will be worth it. But don't expect miracles. If you don't have a dual-core processor, it'd be more advantageous in the long-run to save your money until you can get a dual-core CPU (and mobo that supports it, of course) along with a new video card and possibly faster memory as well.
 
i'd say, in the bang for buck department that you're best off with the X1950Pro in AGP. should be around 125 euros.
but it wont be gigantic increase over the 6600GT.

the other alternative is the second hand market. plenty of second hand higher end AGP cards floating around since people go for PCI-E.
 
Great timing for the thread, as I need some advice too.

I have an AGP motherboard and looking to upgrade my video card. I like the 7600GT, because it supports analog monitors, AGP and is relatively fast and cheap (though, when you have FX5200, everything is fast). Will my P4 2400 MHz, 1GB RAM and 133 MHz FSB be too much of a bottleneck with such a card?
And might there be a price drop on older cards when Nvidia's 8th generation DX10 supporting AGP carp is released?
 
Good choice in my opinion for resolutions up to 1024x768. But your CPU will be a bottleneck at higher ones for sure.

1Gb more of RAM would help a lot too. I upgraded not so long ago and I definitely saw an improvement in recent games like Civ4: BTS and EU3.

As for the price drop I wouldn't count on it being significant, if there's any at all.
 
Here are my current specs, since they seem relevant: A64 3000+ processor and 2 gigs of RAM. My monitor is a cheapo flatscreen that has a max resolution is 1024x768 - so I'm not looking for a super turbo charged card, just something that is a significant boost from the 6600GT at that resolution. Price isn't really an object, since all the AGP cards are ~$100-150 - it's more that I don't want to spend $700+ upgrading just to play 3 or 4 new games. I'd just like the ones that I already have to run faster and have all the shiny stuff turned on. In that light, will upgrading from the 6600GT do anything or is it just a waste of money?

I'd rather stick with Nvidia, so as is I'm just going to look up some stats on the 7800 and 7900 models. Thanks for the help guys.
 
There's not much choice with Nvidia for AGP systems sadly. The top card is the 7800GS but it's price makes it a really bad choice compared to the performance boost you'd get.

Personaly I'd go with the 7600GT. Its perf are about x2.5 to x4 greater than a 6600GT depending of the game and the price is ok for a small upgrade.
 
Montez said:
Here are my current specs, since they seem relevant: A64 3000+ processor and 2 gigs of RAM. My monitor is a cheapo flatscreen that has a max resolution is 1024x768 - so I'm not looking for a super turbo charged card, just something that is a significant boost from the 6600GT at that resolution. Price isn't really an object, since all the AGP cards are ~$100-150 - it's more that I don't want to spend $700+ upgrading just to play 3 or 4 new games. I'd just like the ones that I already have to run faster and have all the shiny stuff turned on. In that light, will upgrading from the 6600GT do anything or is it just a waste of money?

I'd rather stick with Nvidia, so as is I'm just going to look up some stats on the 7800 and 7900 models. Thanks for the help guys.
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But, but but! AMD and ATi forever, holding hands... doing what, lovers do? You don't want to break someones heart do you?! Then again switching to ATi might be seen as quitting... and who wants to be a quitter?! ...I'm going to go gain some HP from the toilet now...
 
Good choice in my opinion for resolutions up to 1024x768. But your CPU will be a bottleneck at higher ones for sure.

1Gb more of RAM would help a lot too. I upgraded not so long ago and I definitely saw an improvement in recent games like Civ4: BTS and EU3.

As for the price drop I wouldn't count on it being significant, if there's any at all.
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Ugh... Then I guess I'll be better off with saving and then buying a whole new system :(
Thanks!
 
Neamos said:
The AGP compatible? Aw crap, I'm behind the news.
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Nvidia isnt going to release any mid or high end card of its 8x00 series on AGP afaik...
 
Neamos said:
Ugh... Then I guess I'll be better off with saving and then buying a whole new system :(
Thanks!
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That's usually the case.

As far as Montez's card goes, your RAM is definitely good (though I dunno about the speed) and your CPU is decent enough that it shouldn't present too large a bottleneck. Depending on how much you want to spend, I'd recommend either a 7900 GS or 7800 GS, since you seem adamant about sticking with nVidia. Though that 7900 GS has a $30 mail-in-rebate, making it a pretty good deal.
 
SuAside said:
i'd say, in the bang for buck department that you're best off with the X1950Pro in AGP. should be around 125 euros.
but it wont be gigantic increase over the 6600GT.

the other alternative is the second hand market. plenty of second hand higher end AGP cards floating around since people go for PCI-E.
Click to expand...


I upgraded my 6600 gt to a Xt1950 agp and it's a huge performance/quality difference, I am able to play Bioshock with all settings on max (except the dx10 feature of course) now for example and that's on a quite old P4.
 
that's semantics, of course...

i went from an 6800GT to a X1950Pro and it was an obvious increase in performance.

however, it doesnt qualify as 'gigantic' if you know the performance increase you couldve gotten of lets say an 8800GTX. ;)
 
8400 & 8600. wow, i'm impressed. :)

i dont quite see their point. shouldnt waste resources on that kind of R&D... there's no way they can use this on their dx10 cards that are actually worth a damn.
 
Well, 8600 could be considered as mid-end. However, as you said, this seems to be the waste of resources unless they develop sth for 8800 and upcoming 65nm series.
On the other hand, any 8800 card would probably be bottlenecked by CPU on AGP rig (the last chipset supporting AGP was NF3 and s754, correct me if I'm wrong)
 
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