• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Good (not great) 8XAGP video card for light gaming and photoshop

F

Fike

Senior member
I still have an AGP board that I want to keep for a while, but it appears that the decent AGP cards are disappearing from the market. So, I want to get a replacement now to lengthen my upgrade time (This upgrade is a 754 based A64 that I finished last summer).

What decent 8XAGP card between $75 and $175 is out there currently?

I do some light gaming...mostly AOE3 and Colin McRae Rally 2005. More importantly would be ensuring that photoshop performance would still be good or better and that I want to support wide format resolutions for a 20 or 23/24 inch LCD at some point in the future.

suggestions?
 
You won't be getting high resolutions with the card you linked in the latest games but it is certainly a significant upgrade from the TI4200

EDIT: there's an x800gto 256mb for $193 ETA early Jan. I would hold out for that.
 
6600 would suit you pretty well i guess. If they come with DDR2 RAM in AGP flavour those o'c to where a stock 6600GT is at, bargain basement power 😉
 
I like the 256 MB of memory on the Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro. I think extra video memory may help make photoshop more responsive. The cheaper nVidia cards seem to top out at 128 MB. Does the 9600 do DX9?

Sapphire 9600
 
Originally posted by: Fike
I like the 256 MB of memory on the Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro. I think extra video memory may help make photoshop more responsive. The cheaper nVidia cards seem to top out at 128 MB. Does the 9600 do DX9?

Sapphire 9600
Click to expand...

Ya.
 
Ack AGP eh?? well I am in the same boat but went out a while back and dropped some coin on a 6800GT from BFG. I have no complaints at all about its ability period. However I have to admit that my original ATI 9800Pro was simply a winner in every respect. In fact I would not have gotten a replacement had it not gone up in flames (Saphirre model).
At bestbuy here (Canada) you can now get an ATI AIW 9800PRO for $199. THat is just a STUPID deal for a great card. If I did not already have all that TV tuner jazz I would have jumped all over that.

Not sure what type of deals you can find around your area but again Bestbuy had a smashing sale on their ATI 850 XT (has dual DVI) a while back... this was in Canadian dollars and I think it might have bbeen a wee bit more than what you wanted to spend but that might be worth a check to see what deals they run now. Also with everyone jumping to PCI-xpress you might find many folks selling their older 850 pro or X800 XL or even 6800GT in your local newsgroup or forums.
 
It looks like the 9600 is a marginal improvement over the Ti4200. I guess it is better because it does DX9, but I am not sure that I know what that really gets me.

anand's review
 
Right now, the Bang for a Buck winner continues to be the 6600GT, with the 9800 Pro right behind it, and the 6800 plain in there somewhere, too. But I've had direct experience with the Ti 4200, FX 5900, and Radeon 9700 Pro, and if you can FIND a 9700 Pro (and because it's out of production, it'll be discounted) for under $100, you'll get what I would say is about a 75% boost in 3D performance over the 4200.

Originally posted by: Fike
Is it junk compared to a Geforce 4 Ti 4200?

Originally posted by: Malladine
The 9600 is junk for gaming.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

The 9600 Pro is faster than the Ti 4200, per this:

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=141&card2=75

A plain 9600 is much slower. For gaming, the RAM that exceeds the bandwidth in bit count ends up being wasted, so for a gaming choice, 128 MB's is as much as should be included with the majority of radeon 9xxx's. AFAIK, only the 9800 Pro and 9800XT had the 256 Bit bandwidth from that generation. I'm not at all certain that this is a limitation for your purposes.


😉
 
Originally posted by: Fike
It looks like the 9600 is a marginal improvement over the Ti4200. I guess it is better because it does DX9, but I am not sure that I know what that really gets me.

anand's review
Click to expand...

DX9 support will let you do things like running HL2/FarCry/Doom3/FEAR with full shaders enabled (and HDR for HL2) -- but the 9600 (even a 9600XT) isn't really fast enough to run those games with everything cranked up.

I'd shoot for a 9700/9800Pro, or a 6600GT/6800 if you want to spend a little more, as suggested numerous times. 😛 All those should be available for under $200, and any would be a big step up from a Ti4200.

Also, you mentioned Photoshop performance... Photoshop is entirely CPU/RAM-limited, so your video card shouldn't affect it much (if at all). Any video card you can buy today (except maybe some hideously bad integrated ones) can do 2D stuff *much* faster than the rest of your system can keep up.
 
Ok, did anyone take note of AoE3?

It's just one of those games that makes a big deal out of SM2.0b and SM3.0

Fike, if you want to play AoE3 with the pretty water effects and such, you'll need a SM3.0 compliant card. None of the ATi cards mentioned here will do that, you'll need to shoot for at least X1600Pro/XT on ATi's side.. but these have not been released on AGP yet, as far as I can tell.

You'll need to shoot for a 6600GT or 6800NU/GT. AoE3 can be taxing, so I'd recommend at least a 6800NU. If you're interested, you can later unlock some pp/vs and OC a 6800NU.

 
Originally posted by: munky
I'd either get a cheap 6600gt like this one for $119 AMR:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130220
or hold out for the gto listed in a post above. A 6600gt is not worth $189, or anything more than $150.
Click to expand...

I can't believe I am going to say this.

I agree with munky :shocked:

I would say get the GT for AOEIII

If you would have said HL2 I would have favored the GTO more.

6600GT's should all be under $150 above that you getting close to $200 and you can get faster cards in that price range.
 
Originally posted by: Maxspeed996
Get an ATI X850XT and be done with it.....

Pros: will not need another Card for that AGP board for a long time.
Cons: $300
Click to expand...

Another con: SM2.0b wont agree with his AoE3.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top