Best AGP card for this system

[Mouse_Nightshirt]

Hi there,

I've been doing research on doing my final AGP GFX card upgrade before I move on to PCIe.

My system is as so:

Core 2 Duo E7200 @ 2.53GHtz (stock speed)
2GB DDR2 RAM
Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 mobo
Sapphire x800xt Platinum Edition (being replaced)

I was thinking of a HD3850 for the moment - I don't think my system will bottleneck it. However, I was thinking I may just upgrade the mobo and get a PCIe card, but that would cost more money than I'm willing to spend for the same performance (or so I believe)

Any advice on what I should do would be much appreciated. Budget wise, I'm not willing to spend too much more than what a HD3850 would cost.

 

[outlw6669]

Welcome to the forums!

You do know that your 4CoreDual-SATA2 has a 16x PCIe slot (albeit at 4x link speed), right?
There is NO reason to waste your cash on an AGP card when you can get an equivalent (or faster) PCIe card for less.

What is your budget, resolution and PSU?
There are certainly better options than an outdated AGP card for your system.

 

[amnotanoobie]

I think the mobo upgrade would be better. The thing is, there is a premium on AGP cards, though the price of AGP 3850 vs PCI-E 3850 may not cover the cost of a whole board, at least your options aren't so limited.

 

[gkay09]

Hi...
If you check out the mobo specs again, you can see that there is a PCIe X4 slot...It has the same physical dimensions of the PCIe x16...
So instead of going for an AGP card, get a PCIe X 16 card, that would perform similar to the AGP card would cost considerably less...

But dont buy any powerful card as it would be limited by the X4 slot...

Check the price difference...
AGP - $80
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103080

PCIe $50 - But the performance would be similar to the AGP version as the slot is only a X4...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102838

 

[Mouse_Nightshirt]

Hi and thanks for the replies!

I was under the impression the PCIe x4 slot would be sufficiently poor to nullify the upgrade?

Is the consensus that a PCIe card on the x4 slot costing £70 would be better than a £70 AGP card?

 

[amnotanoobie]

@ 70 pounds (I'm sorry I don't know where the pound currency sign is ), you'd be able to get a different and faster PCI-E card.

 

[Mouse_Nightshirt]

But would it outperform the AGP card considering the x4 PCIe slot?

 

[amnotanoobie]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-8.html
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/PCI-Express-2.0-Crossfire,review-29948-8.html

The same card (i.e. 3850) may perform on-par with the PCI-E counterpart, but since you'd be able to buy something faster (4670? or higher) it may be bottlenecked but it'd still run faster. Look at the 2nd article on the 8800GTS vs the 2900XT, X4 may bottleneck it but a faster card still performs better.

 

[outlw6669]

Hi and thanks for the replies!

I was under the impression the PCIe x4 slot would be sufficiently poor to nullify the upgrade?

Is the consensus that a PCIe card on the x4 slot costing £70 would be better than a £70 AGP card?

Actually, a 4x PCIe 1.x connection offers nearly the same effective bandwidth as an AGP 8x slot.

It breaks down like this.
An AGP 8x slot offers 2133 MB/s of Parallel bandwidth (used to transfer data in both directions).
A PCIe 4x slot offers 1000MB/s of Full Duplex bandwidth (1000MB/s bandwidth in each data direction).
When put into practice, both the AGP 8x and PCIe 4x slots offer nearly identical performance.

If you can stretch your budget a little, take a look at a 4850 (£79.99 inc VAT) or 4770 (£74.99 inc VAT).
If you your budget is set in stone, a 9600gt (£60.98 inc VAT).
I would highly recommend getting one of the former cards, they are significantly faster.
Which ever you decide to get, make sure to check that your PSU is powerful enough to feed it.

 

[abuyi]

hey everyone...

even i need help in finding the best AGP graphic card for my pc, would you guys please help me out!!!!

my system is
processor- pentium 4, 2.8 ghz bus speed -533MHZ
mother board- Intel Desktop Board D845PESV
Ram- 1.5gb
OS version Windows* XP version 5.1 Service Pack 3 build 2600
Graphic card : ati radeon 9200 series 128 mb ram
Case: i dun know exactly but it has USB ver 2.0 written over it

i have enough money to spend on graphic card but not the whole system

please guys help me out

 

[gkay09]

^ It would be better you would start your own thread on this...
But here goes anyways...
For that config, you can check out HD 4650/ HD 3650 or at the max HD 4670(But would not perform to full potential because of the weak CPU)