Would an old Abit BH6 P3 MB let me run DX9.0C video card?

[madara]

Hi I got old secondary pc, a 733 P3 with abit BH6 Pentium III Processor Based Mainboard with AGP slot. I would like run second account of a game on this that requires a video card with full 2.0 shader support ala DX9.0c video card. Am I up the creek and better of finding a cheap dell or would I be able find an compliant video card that would work on this 1999 MB with original agp?

 

[vailr]

The BH6 is AGP 2x/4x compliant; so not a problem running any AGP 4x-compliant video card.
There may be a bargain-priced card at Newegg's "Open Box" cards.
Such as: SAPPHIRE 100148 Radeon X1600PRO 256MB GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - $87.99

 

[tcsenter]

The 440BX chipset on which the BH6 is based only supports AGP 1.0 Spec (AGP 1X/2X @ 3.3v).

Plug an X1600PRO into that slot and you may get a new paperweight...or two paperweights.

A small handful of AGP 3.0 Spec graphic cards can do AGP 3.3V, but I don't remember which.

 

[knightc2]

tcsenter looks to be correct. Only 1x/2x in the good ole BH6.

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
The 440BX chipset on which the BH6 is based only supports AGP 1.0 Spec (AGP 1X/2X @ 3.3v).

Plug an X1600PRO into that slot and you may get a new paperweight...or two paperweights.

A small handful of AGP 3.0 Spec graphic cards can do AGP 3.3V, but I don't remember which.

not quite correct.

Newer AGP cards work fine in older boards. 3.3v AGP cards will NOT work in a newer AGP board because of the current/voltage draw of said card.

I know this for a fact because I have a Radeon 9600XT in my BH6 system. I also tried it on my BP6 system too. Works fine but not as fast as an 8x slot. Just for fun I may hook up my old SS7 system and try it out.

 

[tcsenter]

I know this for a fact because I have a Radeon 9600XT in my BH6 system. I also tried it on my BP6 system too.

The AGP3.0 GPUs I would have guessed to support legacy 3.3V AGP signaling would be the early models; Radeon 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700 series, et. al.

I seriously question most later GPUs (e.g. X1600) support for AGP 3.3V signaling. In addition, there are power consumption limitations with AGP1.0. Many recent mid-to-high end GPUs, supposing they can get on well with AGP 3.3V signaling, may just plain overload an AGP1.0 slot.

Hopefully the slot and card are keyed correctly to prevent an unsupported card from being inserted into the slot.