looking for AGP for cod4

[invalidparameter]

Hi,

I'm looking for AGP to go in my system. Specs are:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
Radeon 9600SE
1.5 Gig Ram
500 W Enermax PSU

I don't want to upgrade to PCI-e yet. I will be playing COD4 and Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars on this machine mostly.

Looking for used/new under $100. Here is what I have found for the price after searching, I can pick these up from ebay:

7600 GT
X800 Pro/XT
X850 XT

I was thinking about 7600 GT. But some people mentioned X800 is faster than 7600 GT in COD4. I need to confirm this please if someone has X800 and 7600 GT both and running COD4, which is better?

Also anandtech, can we get COD 4 GPU Performance Roundup please?

Are there other better choices besides those cards listed above? Please let me know.
(Not going to upgrade to PCIe).

Thanks.

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.powercolor.com/Glob...res.asp?ProductID=1730

re-using it in a new build will be rough though ...

 

[invalidparameter]

How much will that 3850 cost? Is it available to purchase now?

 

[chizow]

Honestly if you can fit another $200 or so into your budget you're better off just going to PCI-E. Even the best AGP cards have some features cut or neutered so that they don't perform as well as their PCI-E counterparts. A good C2D build nowadays costs a fraction of what it did a year ago:

Pentium Dual-Core (C2D with 1MB L2 cache) E2140 $60
2GB DDR 2 800 $40-50
P35 or 650i board $60-$100
PCI-E card tons of options in the $100-$220 range that offer much better performance

I did the stop-gap AGP thing a little over a year ago and ended up just building a PCI-E rig a few months later. Its not even comparable in terms of the difference in gaming.

 

[invalidparameter]

Thanks chizow, I do realize now that my system needs an upgrade. But do you think that an X800 will let me play COD4 just as well as the new upgrade you mentioned? (and under $100)? How many frames am I expecting out of my current rig with X800 as compared to the specs you mentioned?

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: invalidparameter
Thanks chizow, I do realize now that my system needs an upgrade. But do you think that an X800 will let me play COD4 just as well as the new upgrade you mentioned? (and under $100)? How many frames am I expecting out of my current rig with X800 as compared to the specs you mentioned?

Hmmm hard to say. The X800 is a pretty good bump from the 9600 but in newer games where shaders are very important it might still suffer. I went from a 9700pro to 6800GS OC and it was a decent bump up, but just made me realize my rig and AGP was holding me back.

OTOH, the new PCI-E rig opens up a ton of options although if you used a similar PCI-E card to your 9600pro or X800 that's the kind of performance you'd see in games as the GPU would be the bottleneck. Everything else would be a ton faster though. PCI-E opens up some great options though in the $150+ range, from NV 7800+ or ATI 1900+ or the 3800/8800s in the $200+ range which will absolutely blow the X800 out of the water, especially paired up with a fast overclocked C2D processor.

So no, its no easy answer. You can spend maybe $400 and see maybe a 4-10x increase in performance or you can spend $100 with your current rig and see maybe 10-20%? increase.

 

[invalidparameter]

Alright then I will wait for a month or two and save up to get a new PC. The only ah heck is I still can't play COD4 for next two months!!!

Just curious though, is X800 better than 7600 GT?

 

[zeroburrito]

friend has an x2 3800+ and an x800xl. he plays cod4 at 1024x768 most things off and textures medium at 35-90 fps. average prolly in the 40's in fights. you can oc your 3000+ quite a bit if its a venice. i would still upgrade though.

 

[esquared]

Originally posted by: invalidparameter
Alright then I will wait for a month or two and save up to get a new PC. The only ah heck is I still can't play COD4 for next two months!!!

Just curious though, is X800 better than 7600 GT?

Here's VGA charts FWIW. On the bechmark listed the X800XT and the 7600GT look equal. If the X800 is an XL or GTO the frames are less. 3D Mark 2006 shows the 7600GT with higher scores.

 

[Rottie]

You don't want X850 Pro? It is cheaper than other cards you have listed.

 

[happy medium]

Find yourself a 1950gt and overclock your cpu a little. You should be able to play cod4 med settings and med detail. 1950gt's go for 140-150$.

 

[mruffin75]

If you've got a Socket 939 CPU you could always change the mainboard pretty cheaply..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813186115

And then just buy any PCI-E card?

Although you probably would've thought of that already, and maybe have a Socket 754 cpu instead, in which case your out of luck..