Bringing back to life my old PC

[Sylverkat]

Hello. I noticed that many of you know a lot about computer components, so I will ask my question here. I own an AMD 3100+ 1.8 gb, 2gb ram, and a radeon HD 2400 pro agp 128mb.

I don’t want to buy another computer, but instead I would like to buy a used graphic card.

I thought it would be easy to do so, but I realized after in the forums that the number of the card doesn’t mean the power of it. Ex. X1650 is stronger than 9800 pro.

I was wondering if anyone remembers which AGP card I should look for in order to play Wii emulator or Xbox, or perhaps better games.

The minimum system requirements is a Radeon 9500+ series for the Wii, and a Radeon 9200 Pro for Xbox.

I can get ATI Saphire HD 4650 1Go DDR2 for about 80$. A GeForce 6200 512mb for ~80$, BF7800GS 256mo DDR2 ~65$, SAPPHIRE X1950PRO 512MB DDR3 DUAL-DVi, AGP ~50, ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB AGP 8X VGA/DVI/TV Out. ~20$

Which one has the greatest value for the price and will take me where I would like to go?

Thank you very much for any input you may have. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[holdingholder]

I'm pretty sure the 4650 is the best AGP card that you have listed up there. I'm pretty sure though that there are no emulators that can actually run xbox games besides the First Halo, and it doesn't work properly.

 

[bucknutty]

The best AGP card you can get new would be the 4670 for like $120 on newegg. But if you could find a used HD3850 on ebay that would be the fastests AGP card for games ever made.

Honestly unless you can get one of the 2 cards above for around $50 it really is not worth the money for such an old computer. I think you will be dissapointed with the performance.

 

[JDFan]

What socket is the 3100+ CPU and what MOBO do you have ?? I ask because depending on the socket type another option that would cost about the same but get you better performance increase would be to get a new MOBO with a PCI-e slot instead of AGP. ( AGP cards for their performance level are very overpriced and the same\better performance can be had in a PCI-e card for less $ and an older MOBO that supports your chip can probably be purchased for less than the difference in the 2 graphics cards and enable you to get a better performing graphics card)

Figure the AGP version of the 4650 is about 80$, while Newegg has the PCI-e version for $25 after MIR ( $49.99 - $25 MIR) which shows you how much of a premium they are charging people that want to stick with their AGP slot MOBOs --- Getting a new MOBO instead and a PCI-e video card opens many more options in the approximately same price range.

Plus many of the AGP MOBOs have problems running the newer version AGP video cards because they actually use a PCI bridge chip so the software thinks it is running a PCI-e card not AGP and this can cause problems if the MOBO BIOS does not fully support it properly.

 

[Sylverkat]

What socket is the 3100+ CPU and what MOBO do you have ??

Socket 754 AMD
with a semptron 1.8ghz
(Acer t135)

since i put the ram in it and the HD 2400 pro, i can play until modern warfare 2 but not black ops.

i use this computer basically to run movies in my basement and play n64 emulator.

I though i should buy a wii to play with my boy but i figure it would be best to just upgrade my video card and have more than just Wii games.

 

[JDFan]

What socket is the 3100+ CPU and what MOBO do you have ??

Socket 754 AMD
with a semptron 1.8ghz
(Acer t135)

since i put the ram in it and the HD 2400 pro, i can play until modern warfare 2 but not black ops.

i use this computer basically to run movies in my basement and play n64 emulator.

I though i should buy a wii to play with my boy but i figure it would be best to just upgrade my video card and have more than just Wii games.

Ahh -- yeah the socket 754 is pretty hard to find a PCI-e version of I retired mine (socket 754 3200+ with a 7800GS AGP) about 2 years ago when it started getting hard to upgrade anymore --- it ran most games pretty well but it was starting to struggle with newer games and was having problems with the ATI drivers not wanting to work after certain versions.

 

[Sylverkat]

well, those card was good 2 or 3 years ago, but today, i think it would not worth to get theme even used. the HD4650 listed above at 80$ used is 90$ new.
now i would like to know if i get a new mobo. if it is worth to get with a onboard graphic or they are all poor quality.