Old or old, what's the best for graphics?

I'm visiting my Gran this weekend and she's got an old Athlon computer. Graphics are currently provided by an on-board S3 video chip. I have in my hand a Radeon 7000 32MB PCI graphics card. Now on-board graphics are the lowest of the low I know, but it is at least connected via speedy AGP and can steal plenty of RAM. PCI is limited in both respects, so would this be an upgrade or a downgrade?

It's just running XP; emails, light web browsing and the odd bit of Word. Upgrading from 512MB to 1GB of RAM at the same time.

Can't see it making any difference to usability but would add more power-draw and heat.

Stick with the on-board for the tasks you have listed, unless there is a problem with it.

It currently runs pretty slowly, although the limited RAM might be the issues (XP used to run fine on 256MB, too many bloated updates).

Maybe just try with the new RAM and if it's still a bit slow then get an old AGP graphics card from fleabay.

Speeding up the graphics card isn't really going to make any difference for web browsing and the like, and even if it was going to I don't think a 7000 is going to make any appreciable difference.

CPU/RAM/HDD, beyond that I wouldn't worry much for an office PC.

Actually it might - given that on board s3 is actually slow enough to mean GDI acceleration will be better with a dedicated card. That and dedicated video memory should make a noticeable difference in desktop apps imho. You wouldn't have to shoot very high to outgun an S3.

I remember when the S3 launched with '3d acceleration' which was actually slower than software emulation :mrgreen: Remember when RAMDAC speeds actually were an issue? The S3 does :)

Extra ram helps once things are running, I think the combination of single core CPU and a slow IDE hdd are the biggest culprits for the slowness on loading though. Ordered a FX5200 AGP graphics card from feabay just in case it makes a difference (and I might give an old game a try...)

I think the graphics card may have helped a bit. What helped the most was getting DMA working on the hard drive. Turns out there's a bug with the old VIA chips where DMA doesn't work on the primary IDE channel, moved over the cable and the computer doesn't grind to a halt every time the hard disk is accessed! Wonderful :)

If only I had a few games with me to put this pimped out rig to use...