Older AGP card, which one?

[Valis]

AGP ATI 3650 or ATI 9800 Pro? They have about the same performance. The old 9800 has higher mem bandwidth (256bits vs 128bits on the 3650) though.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=31&card2=562

But I guess the 3650 wins due to newer chip, more memory and shaders, etc.

 

[FalseChristian]

I think you should go with the 3650. It is faster and supports DirectX10 and has 512MB of DDR3.

 

[Valis]

Yes, that sounds reasonable. 🙂 I forgot to mention that they are powered by an Athlon XP 2.1 - 2.2 Ghz.

 

[nemesismk2]

I think you should go with the 3650. It is faster and supports DirectX10 and has 512MB of DDR3.

You should do as this member has said. I have owned a 3650 with DDR3 and its performance was okay for light gaming.

With 3dmark 2006 I had 5339 which is good 🙂

 

[CurseTheSky]

It comes down to price. If you already own both cards, go with the newer one. If you're buying them used, go with the cheaper one (unless the difference is only $5 or so).

 

[Leyawiin]

Yes, that sounds reasonable. 🙂 I forgot to mention that they are powered by an Athlon XP 2.1 - 2.2 Ghz.

The 9800 Pro is less likely to have compatibility issues with an old Socket A (462) motherboard. Given the CPU it really doesn't matter performance-wise between the two. The HD 3650 will support the newest drivers though. The last driver for the 9800 Pro was released in February (10.2).

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The 9800 also doesn't support SM3.0, which means even it can't even play games (like Bioshock) at all even though it should have enough performance to do so (on low settings). The 3650 has the ability to play any game, also I'd wager it's faster than a 9800 more than you suspect.

 

[Valis]

The 3650 on AGP is a mess, the catalyst driver doesn't recognize it, and when I try the fix AMD has made, it says the card is a VisionTek 2600 XT. 🙁 (It's a 3D club/powercolor HD 3650 (RV635)).

They had a working driver on the manufacturer's homepage, but how long is that going to last, and I get an unrecognized PCI device, no matter which driver I install (HD audio, etc).

 

[balane]

I have an old system with an AGP 3650. It runs stellar imho. I play WoW, settings maxed, LOTRO with settings on medium to high and Oblivion/Fallout 3 with settings about halfway up. This is on an old E2160 1.8GHz dual core Intel. I'm very impressed with this card to say the least. I failed to mention this was at 1920x1200 and 2GB of RAM.

I have Windows 7 64 bit and use this driver with absolutely no issues. I've only once had a driver install issue on that computer and it was my fault.

Check these out, for most OS's. No troubles for me at all. Good luck.

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/CatalystAGPHotfix.aspx