What do I put in an oldish computer with AGP?

E

Ebenol

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 9, 2003
Messages
151
AMD Barton 3200+
1GB RAM
9600 pro
shitty 300W PSU with a 18A 12V rail.

I am pretty close to retiring this machine. What would be awesome would be if I could keep it usable for at least a while. Obviously I haven't really been able to play any games for a long while so I don't expect any miracles, but would it be possible to put a 7600GT or some other card (something in that price range, I am not looking to spend any great amounts on this old thing) and actually be able to play newer games like say bioshock?

Please tell me about graphic cards that wouldn't be limited by my CPU and would work with a fairly weak 300W PSU and in a normal 8x AGP slot. I don't think there would be any point to getting a card that wouldn't be many times faster than my current one.
 
I wouldnt get anything less than that 7600GT if you even wanna be able to run Bioshock. You can get the GeCube x1950pro for $114 after rebate. It would be a good card but I dunno if that power supply can take it. Sucks man I know. I was stuck on AGP till about 2 months ago. I tried upgrading but then said screw it and went PCI-E.
 
If you dont mind the extra electric use, you can install a superb Linux based firewall like Smoothwall, Untangle, Monowall etc.
You will need 2 network interfaces.
 
I had the exact same components and I tried out a 6600gt and x800xt, both were bottlenecked by ram and cpu in newer games ( when I tried these components out, FEAR was a new game). So I set it up as a htpc running vista. That's about all there's left.
 
6800GT will be the maximum power card until you bottleneck.. you will be able to play FEAR, BF2, etc. with decent frames plus graphics.
 
Mister E said:
I wouldnt get anything less than that 7600GT if you even wanna be able to run Bioshock. You can get the GeCube x1950pro for $114 after rebate. It would be a good card but I dunno if that power supply can take it. Sucks man I know. I was stuck on AGP till about 2 months ago. I tried upgrading but then said screw it and went PCI-E.
Click to expand...

That is a great price for that card, I paid $154 3 weeks ago for mine.
450Watt+ is what the manual says you need to have.
 
The 7600 GT is an excellent choice for what you want: it uses just 35w, which your powersupply can probably cope with. DO NOT get a 6800 GT as suggested above, because it uses twice as much power with the same perfonance.

For your info: your 9600 Pro uses about 15-20w, and I'm pretty certain your 18A supply can handle the jump to 35w. Hell, if by some crazy chance your system cannot handle the new card, then go buy a GOOD powersupply, and consider it an investment toward your eventual upgrade.
 
A 7800 GS would work wonders for your system. And I happen to have a used one for sale! :p

(actually it will be for sale in about two weeks, pm me if you are interested)

I am running a P4 2.4c @ 3.36 and In most cases I am GPU limited, so you should still benefit from a card in this range. One notable exception where I am CPU limited is Team Fortress 2.

Hope this helps.
 
I'm sort of in the same boat, except my card's an X800XT and I've got a 380W Antec power supply.
I did alot of searching to see what AGP based card would work in my machine that would increase performance significantly, and not fry the power supply and came to the conclusion that the Nvidia 7900 series cards are the only ones that improve performance without blowing my power supply (The ATI X19xx series is too power hungry.) However, the performance improvement would not be much over the X800XT I've already got.

The ATI X1800, X1900, and Nvidia 6800, 7800 cards just pull too much power. All the low power modern GPU's, the ATI x6xx and lower, and NVidia x6xx and lower numbered cards just don't provide any performance improvements for happy gaming.

So in the end I decided to stick with what I've got and bite the bullet and build a whole new PCI-e system with a >700 W power supply once the ATI X38xx series cards are released.

Unfortunately, I doubt that with your power supply, even the ATI X800 I have in my system would be an option since it'll most probably push your 300W power supply past its limit. A 7900GS card would probably be the best for you since it would be a significant performance upgrade and is the most power friendly of the "higher than mainstream" cards. For example, the XFX PVT71KUDF3 GeForce 7900GS 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail is $150 after rebate at one of the eggy online retailers is what I'd get if I were in your shoes.
 
I had that same basic setup with a x850 xt 256mb card. Icould play BF 2142 on max 2xAA smoooth, fear also on basically max settings
 
I understand that ATI will put out an AGP version of the cards due out in a week or so, might be worth waiting just a smidge longer. ATI pretty much admitted they cannot beat the new 8800GT but can come close and will therefore price lower (well if you condense all the "rumors" and journalist that talked to a guy that talked to a guy, thats my take on what is being unoffically officially leaked).
 
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