AGP graphics card upgrade dilema

[-=}sas{=-]

i have recently got into fps games and currently enjoy playing americas army however my graphics card is pathetic its a ati 9200se and i cant even walk through smoke so i need a new agp graphics card, i am willing to spend about £70 and i have found a few on ebuyer that fall into my price range the oe that i liked the most was the point of view 7600gt (£65) but it has ddr2 memory and normally the 7600gt has ddr3 memory, there are also 7600gs models and ati 1650pro models for between £55 and £70 available and i dont know if the gt will be faster than the 7600gs or the 1650pro's because of the lower speed memory. can anyone offer some advice please.

nb. i forgot to mention that i currently have a 19'' tft normal aspect ratio and i plan to get a 22'' widescreen tft within the next 3-6 months i dont know whether any of the graphics cards im looking at will allow me to run fps games and mmorpgs well on a 22'' tft like the samsung 226bw for example.

[Queelis]

You will probably will not able to play new games with a 70 pound card on a 22 incher, but for now you can get this or this. Both are DDR3.

[Pob255]

Actually quite a few of the AGP cards only have DDR2 on them, althought more DDR3 are appearing.

As much as I like geforce's for that kind of money on AGP you're probably best off with an ATi X1650Pro

The main thing to remember with card performance is the monitor size does not matter, Resolution matters.
e.g. the current common native resolution for a 17inch TFT is 1280x1024
The current common resolution for a 19inch TFT is 1280x1024
So the FPS should not be effected at all.

The samsung 226bw resolution is 1680x1050, the 7300GT should be able to cope at 1280x1024 although you might have to drop it down to 1024x768 for some games and I think it'll be massively struggling at 1680x1050. a 7600GT will be better but is still going to struggle.

Asus X1650Pro 256mb £68.73

[therover]

The Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro from RL Supplies has 256Mb of DDR3 Ram and is cheaper at £68.09 including VAT.

http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/products....asp?id=221341

I cannot find a better card for under £70

[problemo]

7600 GT is the best you can get on AGP in that price category.

Look at Leadtek's and especially Gainward's offerings, and cash out a few extra quid for the latter if you find it - highly recommended (it's factory OC'd):

link on gainward com : /en/product/product_detail_v8231.html

8231-BLISS 7600GT 256 Golden Sample

GPU 575+ MHz
Memory 256MB 1,2ns DDR3
Memory Clockspeed: 1500+ MHz

... and it has a double DVI

[Flewis]

If you can stretch to it then the X1950pro on ebuyer for £105 would give excellent performance and would run on a 22" monitor:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119300

Even at this performance AGP doesnt restrict much and still gives near PCIe performance.

[5aboy]

if i was you i wouldnt spend that much money on one of these. if you are not going to go the whole hog and upgrade to PCI-e based system, get a cheap 9800pro or equivalent, there are a few floating around on this and other (ie bittech i think) forums.

i was searching for one until i found my ti4800Se worked, and now im about to upgrade anyhow.

just my 2p worth.

[daniel_owen_uk]

Rumour has it the 8600GT may make it to AGP.

Not seen one yet though.

[kalniel]

I'm not sure I agree 5aboy. He's running a Venice at 2.7ghz, which is easily enough to run a x1950pro without bottlenecking.

Remember AGP is the same speed as PCI-E, so the only reason to go PCI-E is because of cost/what slot you've got available.

[DanceswithUnix]

Or save a little more and buy some sort of cheap PCIe motherboard for your current cpu+ram, and get off the old AGP treadmill.

Will save you a few quid on the graphics card to help offset the cost. For expensive cards the AGP premium can be silly, and can basically pay for the board.

[jamena]

Rumour has it the 8600GT may make it to AGP.

Not seen one yet though.

what rumour where?! I'd quite like one of the 8500's for the video processing capabilities for an HTPC encumbered by AGP. It's really waiting for that or get a 6200...


At the moment I have a 9800pro AIW and it's a tad noisier than I'd like (for work/HTPC purposes), plus ATI are still a bit poor under Linux, but under XPpro it runs most (not all, but most) games just fine so long as you don't turn up the settings too high. CSSource is fine most of the time set to high at 1280x800 except on certain maps (militia outdoors ... ow). BF2 was happy at 1280x on medium settings.


There is/was a 6800GS AGP in the for sale forums not so long ago that I was tempted by going for around £45-50. That'd do pretty well if you're not too demanding of it...but a 7600GT would probably be another notch up the ladder.

[scrandman]

Or save a little more and buy some sort of cheap PCIe motherboard for your current cpu+ram, and get off the old AGP treadmill.

The problem with that motherboard is he'll lose his 2.7GHz overclock and be stuck with stock speed (1.8GHz)...

[chrism]

Rumour has it the 8600GT may make it to AGP.

Not seen one yet though.

In that case, maybe I should hold out a little longer, though the opinions of the PCI-E version weren't stellar...
(I'm on the verge of getting a 7600GT AGP)

[-=}sas{=-]

the 2.7 overclock is the reason why i chose to keep what i got and get a new agp card rather than get a new motherboard so i can have pci-e,

my motherboard and cpu were hand picked for their overclock ability and it runs very nicely.

i think im gonna go with the 7600 gs i found here
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119716

unless anyone recons that the extra £10 for this one is worth it
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/127243
im only sceptical because this gt version has ddr2 memory and not ddr3 like all other 7600gt cards i have ever seen

i am not exactly loaded so i have to be a bit more frugal than most people and i really never got interested in the graphics card thing so dont understand most of the features and stuff that they are capable of and dont want to pay more than i have to for the ability to play my faveourite game at a decent framerate.

thankyou everyone for the helpfull advice i have recieved so far

[scrandman]

To be honest, either of those will be an improvement over your current card. That said, a 7600GS or GT with DDR2 will really struggle on a 22" monitor unless you plan to drop the resolution to 1280 x 1024 or 1280 x 800 (if its widescreen) and knock some of the settings back to medium.

[CrapshoT]

Sorry to hug your thread but I'm in the same boat as you sas.I don't want to change motherboard from my agp to a pcie.Everything is running sweet I just need a bit more oomph in the gfx department.I'll have about £120 to spend but I've no idea what to spend it on.