Question Best AGP graphics card option for an old AMD Thunderbird CPU PC.

[silversmithy]

I am currently working on a very old PC that is now functioning properly as of 2 days ago. I really enjoy retro computers and even playing an old game once in a while. I would like to find out which AGP graphics card would work the best with this old PC. I apologize as I forgot to specify which motherboard it is. I will add that later on. So far this is what I know:

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1000 or 1200, (I will need to double check exactly).

Compatible motherboard with above CPU. Takes DDR 100 ram so, yes it's very old. Currently have 384 KB Ram utilizing 2 of the the 3 slots.

2 DVD drives. PC has a floppy drive also, but that is disconnected.

340 watt PSU (Enlighten brand I think). Previous PSU was a 300 Watt and I believe that and the USB keyboard were causing boot issues.

If I do play a game it will be something like Red Baron 3D... or an older NFS game.


Thanks for checking out my post, and really appreciate any help/advice.

 

[logainofhades]

From what I can gather, with a bit of google searching, the HD 3850 or HD 4670 AGP were the fastest AGP cards ever produced.

 

[CelicaGT]

Sweet PC gods I just took a couple boxes of Socket A era stuff to the recycle/reuse shack. I bought it all new and hot off the shelf, now it's retro. Good on you for keeping the dream alive!

*I did keep my Duron 800 CPU, it's on the "museum" shelf next to all my other old ass CPU's...with the pencil marks from me breaking the Ghz barrier still on it.

 

[silversmithy]

Sweet PC gods I just took a couple boxes of Socket A era stuff to the recycle/reuse shack. I bought it all new and hot off the shelf, now it's retro. Good on you for keeping the dream alive!

*I did keep my Duron 800 CPU, it's on the "museum" shelf next to all my other old ass CPU's...with the pencil marks from me breaking the Ghz barrier still on it.

I'm trying.😊. Old Duron CPU...cool!!!

 

[silversmithy]

From what I can gather, with a bit of google searching, the HD 3850 or HD 4670 AGP were the fastest AGP cards ever produced.

Thanks. I saw that too, but I also found others stating that even some slower cards were not compatible with certain CPU's, and Motherboards. I'll get the exact motherboard listed later today.

 

[logainofhades]

My first build was with a Duron 700, that got upgraded to an Athlon XP 1700+ later on. Had an SIS 315 agp graphics card, from ECS. I upgraded it later, to an Nvidia card, but I cannot remember what one. I want to say an FX 5200, but I cannot be 100% certain.

 

[hedwar2011]

The last AGP card I ran was a FX 5250 put out by BFG (I'm telling my age). Glad to see someone else still desires the olden PC days from time to time.

 

[thestryker]

Generally speaking when trying to match old hardware I tend to look at what platforms were out when the cards came out. I haven't checked pricing so I don't know if that will matter or not but even in the AGP era it's possible to get a card that will be bottlenecked by CPU. One of the nvidia 7000 GPUs (I think I had 7800GS cards back then in my machines) might make more sense in this build.