Recommended AGP Video Card?

[cjbee]

Hey everyone, it's been awhile since I've posted, but I'm looking for some advice on something. The specs of my current system are as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.0GHZ
Asus A8V Deluxe Mobo
Samsung 2x512MB PC3200 DDR400 RAM
EVGA e-GeForce 6600GT
Maxtor Diamond Max10 200GB HD
NEC ND-3520A
Antec TruePower 380W PSU

I'm a gamer, mostly playing stuff like CS:S, BF2, FEAR, etc. and the 6600GT was great for these games at 1024x768 and 1280x1024 at medium settings. However, I recently received a 20" Widescreen monitor which runs at 1680x1050 native. Which AGP card would you recommend that would allow me to play those games (also looking at getting Crysis) at high settings at that resolution? I'm not really looking to upgrade anything else, maybe the PSU if absolutely necessary - I'm budgeting around $250-300CDN for this. If you need any more information, feel free to ask.

Thanks.

*Should have mentioned that I'm located in Canada. My bad.

 

[Syntax Error]

IMO, a budget around $250-300 would warrant a buying a new computer...with that kind of money, it's best simply to upgrade to Core 2 Duo, new motherboard, DDR2, and of course, PCI-e video card.

No one says that's going to be cheap, but in my opinion, an AGP card can only go so far and your hard-earned dollars isn't going to get quite the performance value for money as PCI-e users are getting in their HD3870s and 8800GTs.

 

[cjbee]

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
IMO, a budget around $250-300 would warrant a buying a new computer...with that kind of money, it's best simply to upgrade to Core 2 Duo, new motherboard, DDR2, and of course, PCI-e video card.

No one says that's going to be cheap, but in my opinion, an AGP card can only go so far and your hard-earned dollars isn't going to get quite the performance value for money as PCI-e users are getting in their HD3870s and 8800GTs.

Appreciate your input, thanks.

 

[Wuzup101]

I have to agree. That's a big chunk of change that you could put towards another rig. I would hold off and save a bit more until the technology that you want to purchase is out and or in your price range. I know waiting sucks, but $300 is about 1/3 or more of a decent CD2 or quad rig. Not top of the line, but not a bad PC either.

 

[cjbee]

Originally posted by: Wuzup101
I have to agree. That's a big chunk of change that you could put towards another rig. I would hold off and save a bit more until the technology that you want to purchase is out and or in your price range. I know waiting sucks, but $300 is about 1/3 or more of a decent CD2 or quad rig. Not top of the line, but not a bad PC either.

Yeah, well put. I'm thinking of putting together a new rig maybe February or March of next year, but I'm wanting to keep this one going as well...I was thinking maybe the 512MB version of the X1950 Pro? I found one at a great price from a local dealer...but...overkill?

 

[Inspector Jihad]

yea thats a good choice...personally i was thinking of getting the 2600xt when they get the driver situation fixed cause its cheaper and better than the 1950 in many situations. another thing to keep in mind is that the 3850 is coming out in agp flavor so that might drive prices of the older cards down.

 

[Skunkwourk]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
yea thats a good choice...personally i was thinking of getting the 2600xt when they get the driver situation fixed cause its cheaper and better than the 1950 in many situations. another thing to keep in mind is that the 3850 is coming out in agp flavor so that might drive prices of the older cards down.

just curious, when does the 2600xt beat the x1950?

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: m0mentary

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
yea thats a good choice...personally i was thinking of getting the 2600xt when they get the driver situation fixed cause its cheaper and better than the 1950 in many situations. another thing to keep in mind is that the 3850 is coming out in agp flavor so that might drive prices of the older cards down.

just curious, when does the 2600xt beat the x1950?

Nope, the 2600XT sometimes is as fast as the X1900GT/X1950GT, in special case scenarios, it can be slighly faster, but in overall speed, the X1950PRO is faster, specially when Anti Aliasing is enabled.

 

[Marty502]

Not to mention that if you're lucky and you manage to get an overclockable x1950 Pro it will genuinely spank a 2600XT left right and center. Mine does.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

a 2600xt is about 50 dollars cheaper at newegg.

 

[AgentUnknown]

I asked this question about a month ago. I budgeted around $500 and built a new PC. AGP is not worth it now. Especially when you are running a 8800gt.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

x1950 series would be perfect for that final year.

 

[cjbee]

Yeah, I bit the bullet...baught the 512MB version of the HIS Radeon X1950 Pro for $180 (CDN - it's retailing at NCIX for $275 right now...yikes) and a Corsair CMPSU-520HX PSU to juice it all...it's running perfectly right now...everything's looking amazing. Thanks for all the input guys.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: cjbee
I'm not really looking to upgrade anything else, maybe the PSU if absolutely necessary - I'm budgeting around $250-300CDN for this.

You can hugely improve on 6600GT for much less than $250.

7600GT with GDDR3 is twice as fast across the board, up to 125% faster in a few benchmarks. I realize you are in Canada, I'm just giving the following as examples. I don't know what is available from Canadian sources.

~ $150.00 shipped

7900GS with GDDR3 is faster still, about 150% faster than 6600GT across the board:

~ $185.00 shipped (before rebate)

I'm not sure what the low customer ratings are about on the XFX 7900GS. The XFX 7600GT has much better ratings.

X1950Pro would be a good option, it is slightly faster than 7900GS in many benchmarks and on par in others, but not enough to justify paying significantly more than 7900GS. Unfortunately, the supply of X1950 GT and PRO cards seems to be dwindling fast.

ATI's recent driver problems with AGP cards is something to be considered as well. The standing ATI response that it is "currently investigating" is getting more than a bit old now.

 

[AVP]

3850 coming to AGP, wait for it!

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: cjbee
I'm not really looking to upgrade anything else, maybe the PSU if absolutely necessary - I'm budgeting around $250-300CDN for this.

You can hugely improve on 6600GT for much less than $250.

7600GT with GDDR3 is twice as fast across the board, up to 125% faster in a few benchmarks. I realize you are in Canada, I'm just giving the following as examples. I don't know what is available from Canadian sources.

~ $150.00 shipped

7900GS with GDDR3 is faster still, about 150% faster than 6600GT across the board:

~ $185.00 shipped (before rebate)

I'm not sure what the low customer ratings are about on the XFX 7900GS. The XFX 7600GT has much better ratings.

X1950Pro would be a good option, it is slightly faster than 7900GS in many benchmarks and on par in others, but not enough to justify paying significantly more than 7900GS. Unfortunately, the supply of X1950 GT and PRO cards seems to be dwindling fast.

ATI's recent driver problems with AGP cards is something to be considered as well. The standing ATI response that it is "currently investigating" is getting more than a bit old now.

In recent games the X1950PRO is able even to rival and outperform the 7950gt due that future games with lots of shaders are more suitable for the X1k architecture, in games below 2006, the 7900GS tends to be as fast or slighly slower than the X1950PRO

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: Marty502
Not to mention that if you're lucky and you manage to get an overclockable x1950 Pro it will genuinely spank a 2600XT left right and center. Mine does.

x1950 pro is not an overclockable I tried with my x1950 pro it crashed

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
In recent games the X1950PRO is able even to rival and outperform the 7950gt due that future games with lots of shaders are more suitable for the X1k architecture, in games below 2006, the 7900GS tends to be as fast or slighly slower than the X1950PRO

You mean games like "CS:S, BF2, FEAR"?

Tom's VGA Charts does show a weird trading-off in some benchmarks, with the X1950Pro significantly out-performing the 7900GS in some things and the 7900GS significantly out-performing X1950Pro in some things. And all of those benchmarks are from mid-to-late 2006 except for Doom 3. The overall combined score shows the X1950Pro with ~ 10% advantage, which is consistent with everything I've seen to date between these cards, so that's what I went with.

Of course, nothing holds true because we simply don't know how much these cards/scores are influenced by CPU + RAM. His Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.0GHZ + 1GB PC3200 is significantly disadvantaged compared to THG's Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 + 2GB DDR2-800. But nothing I've seen suggests that X1950Pro would justify paying significantly more than 7900GS, which was really my point.

Well...unless your favorite games just happen to be the ones that X1950Pro is really strong in. That would be a reason.

 

[evident]

i just got my friend a 6800ultra for $60. should allow him to play ut3 w/ me for a bit

 

[boatillo]

I had to make a similar decision, was running the same Asus A8V + 6800GT and it was getting too slow for my 22" WS.

But after looking at the x1950pro (and other AGP) prices, I could not justify spending that kind of dough on outdated hardware when comparable and *better* pci-e choices existed for the same price or less.

I ended up snagging a used DFI nf4 Ultra-D for $50 with every accessory, and then had my pic of any video card I wanted to use. Going with the 3870 because the small die size draws less power than all these other cards so I can continue to use the same PSU as well!

 

[Lexxon]

I bought an X1950GT 256MB AGP card when Newegg had them for $120. It worked fine, but my CPU was a bit of a bottleneck in games such as Oblivion. Half Life 2 maxed very nicely, though.

As a sidenote, I'm looking to get rid of that card now that I have a rig given to me with a dual-core processor, but crappy PCI-e card. 7300GT isn't exactly the top of the line

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Lexxon
I bought an X1950GT 256MB AGP card when Newegg had them for $120. It worked fine, but my CPU was a bit of a bottleneck in games such as Oblivion. Half Life 2 maxed very nicely, though.

As a sidenote, I'm looking to get rid of that card now that I have a rig given to me with a dual-core processor, but crappy PCI-e card. 7300GT isn't exactly the top of the line

And for how much are you gonna sell that X1950GT?