First off let's get this out of the way, my PC is old. Older than the hills almost and has an AGP graphics card slot. No PCI express for me and I can't afford a new motherboard at the moment.
However I'd save up for one if my current Radeon 9800 wasn't in a bind. One of the capacitors is loose and the card will die sooner rather than later.
Ergo no new motherboard for me.
So in short I need a new card, but I need a new old card.
So any suggestions on a decent AGP graphics card that can be affordable on a low budget?
I'd ideally like an upgrade from my current.
Also it's not a complete waste of money if I buy a new card and then a new motherboard later, this comp when full repaired and I have another will be going to my Mother as hers is even worse than mine.
If you can find an old Radeon X850 series, it should have about twice the power over your old, dying card. And from there it just gets better and better. If you want something with shader model 3 or better I'd suggest one of the nvidia 7600-series (or 7800), or Radeon 1600, 1800 or 1900-series and up. Ati... err... AMD is sticking with the AGP slots up to even the 3000 series. But you might need a better power supply for the newer cards.
Whatever you do decide on, make sure the card got at least a 128-bit or higher memory bandwidth.
I might be able to provide an AGP X800. I'd suggest that you look into the X800 and X850's for the ancient PC, as I doubt it'd require much more and an X800 was enough for me to play Need for Speed Carbon Max All way back when which is probably more than you'll ever really need.
Best I found is the Sapphire Radeon HD3450. Cost me like 50 euros, but I managed to get my single core-64bit-745-slot-AMD, with a 3 GB or RAM to run latest games smoothly.
This card supports DX10, has shader model 4 and HDMI out.
I'd say go for it
EDIT: it is an AGP card, of course
ATI Radeon 9800 0.o, that's old...maybe GeForce 9800 GT? i heard that they are cheap in these days..
' Wrote:Best I found is the Sapphire Radeon HD3450. Cost me like 50 euros, but I managed to get my single core-64bit-745-slot-AMD, with a 3 GB or RAM to run latest games smoothly.
This card supports DX10, has shader model 4 and HDMI out.
I'd say go for it
EDIT: it is an AGP card, of course
50 euros? You poor saps in the EU. Average retail price here is $30 for the PCI-E version... Granted that the AGP version shouldn't be more than $40.
But yes, valid suggestion. I don't recommend you use the DX10 function on it though...It's like saying an NVidia 8200GS has DirectX 10 support... It supports it but it's not that great a card to begin with, so making it work harder by running DirectX 10 is like beating a dead horse so to speak...
' Wrote:ATI Radeon 9800 0.o, that's old...maybe GeForce 9800 GT? i heard that they are cheap in these days..
9800 GTs are NOT cheap, they're about $80 Used. I sold my 8800 GT PCI-E for $110.
Yes, $100 is cheap for a decent video card but it's most likely too expensive to spend on a system that lacks a PCI-E slot...
The lack of a PCI-E slot points to either a single core P4 with Hyperthreading that's most likely a Socket 478, or an Athlon Sempron/64 single core running Socket 754. Don't quote me on it, but odds are that's what's running in the system. Socket 939s (which are ancient by now) do generally have PCI-E slots (Mine did!), and Socket 775s without a doubt have PCI-E slots.
3450 is your best bet. however, your board definetly needs a change but when changing a component as central as board, you may end up changing it all due to compatibility.
If you are not in a terrible hurry you could try to find a better second hand computer from ebay or whatever you Brits use.
It's certainly going to be around 100, but you'd be surprised what people just give away practically for free if they come into used.
I've browsed out of curiosity some second hand stores and the prices haven't been that bad for a whole working computer with better specs than yours have to be for around 100 euros.