Replacement card for Mom's 9800pro?

[hawkeye_wx]

Today my Mom's radeon 9800 pro 128mb(passed down with computer from my brother) crapped out and started sending a messed up image to the monitor. It seems the fan stopped working at some point so the card may have overheated, although it's just a browsing machine.

For a replacement card I was thinking about picking up a used 9600 or 9600pro(both 128mb) on ebay. Like I said, this is a web browsing/email machine. Would these cards provide a similarly smooth browsing experience compared to the 9800pro, including watching youtube and other video clips? What about the lower-clocked 9600 vs the 9600pro? Both would cost about the same(<$20). I was leaning toward the 9600 non-pro because it is passively cooled and we wouldn't have to worry about another fan becoming noisy or dying, but I don't want my Mom to get a significant smoothness downgrade. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

 

[stahlhart]

I replaced my AIW 9800Pro with an AIW X800XL.

 

[Blue_Max]

You're using ancient AGP socket stuff there... just replace it with anything cheap you can get your hands on - I doubt your mom would ever see the difference.

 

[SPBHM]

you can buy dual core ivy bridge (videos is better than the 9800 pro) + MB + memory for a little over $100


the 9600 was like half a 9800, but outside gaming I would expect both to deliver the same experience.

 

[Zorander]

You're using ancient AGP socket stuff there... just replace it with anything cheap you can get your hands on - I doubt your mom would ever see the difference.

X2.

It's just a browsing machine with an equally ancient CPU. Just get the cheapest AGP card you can find. A fanless Radeon HD2000/3000 series card will do nicely.

 

[frozentundra123456]

you can buy dual core ivy bridge (videos is better than the 9800 pro) + MB + memory for a little over $100


the 9600 was like half a 9800, but outside gaming I would expect both to deliver the same experience.

I was thinking along the same lines. Maybe it is time to just buy her a new computer. If you watch carefully for sales and look at dell/Lenovo outlets you should be able to get a Pentium desktop for 300 to 400 dollars. Or get a low end laptop in the same price range. Any of those would be far superior to what she has. I also can't imagine that other parts of that computer are not going to start to fail as well.

 

[Puffnstuff]

This post reminded me that I still have a aiw 9800 pro in a box somewhere. Man I haven't used agp in like forever.

 

[blackened23]

I was thinking along the same lines. Maybe it is time to just buy her a new computer. If you watch carefully for sales and look at dell/Lenovo outlets you should be able to get a Pentium desktop for 300 to 400 dollars. Or get a low end laptop in the same price range. Any of those would be far superior to what she has. I also can't imagine that other parts of that computer are not going to start to fail as well.

If she only browses the web get a chromebook for 200$ and call it a day.

 

[hawkeye_wx]

At some point I'll get her a new computer, but for now a $20 video card is the easy choice. The computer has been fine for her.

One more question... for a browsing machine would there be any difference in smoothness between a radeon 9600 (128 bit memory interface) and a radeon 9600se (64 bit memory interface)? I know for gaming the neutered se version has always been garbage, but I don't know if the memory interface would affect stuff like flash/video performance. A lot of the cheaper used cards on ebay are the se version.

 

[Z15CAM]

If you can find an ATi Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP - Do it - It's as Fast as a HD 3750 which I believe was the last AGP Card made. I picked one up on eBay for $18 to replace a 9800 XT on my trusty Socket A GA-7N400 Pro2 (rev. 2).

These Cards have HDMI. If The AGP Bus on your MB is not setup for it the HDMI Port will show up as an unrecognized device in Device Mgr (no big deal if your not using HDMI); however, you can edit the MB's BIOS Firmware to allocate another IRQ to the AGP Bus for HDMI if you are inclined.

 

[Blue_Max]

Actually, I like someone's suggestion of replacing the guts entirely... a $40 Intel cpu w/ onboard graphics, 4-8GB DDR3, cheap 1155 mobo - she'd be happy as a clam for only ~$120.

You might be using PATA drives... watch for boards that still have a PATA controller.