WTB: Better AGP Video Card

C

choppedliver

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 3, 2005
Messages
479
Looking for something that was more towards the top of the line when agp was the cats meow. My friend has a radeon 8500 all in wonder and refuses to buy a new computer. Should be something at least better than the radeon...
 
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I have a Radeon 9800Pro 256mb laying around somewhere, but it's going to be a week or two before I can get to it. It's buried in the back of my storage unit, so I can't get to it until I move in to my new house.
 
Just thought about power draw...

probably should stick to the more efficient cards... not sure what his power supply is, but its whatever came with the p.o.s. compaq presario sempron 3000. His main problem is he got a bigger monitor, and he can't watch videos without it studdering. I figured something that would offload the decoding to the gpu would get him running , probably something in the 3450 4350 series i think those only run about 25 watts or something low like that. Doesn't play ANY games. How many watts does the 4650 pull?
 
Radeon 9800, etc although they are classic cards, are too old. They only support DirectX 9a.

You can still get by with a DirectX9 card, as long as it supports DirectX9c / Shader Model 3.0

For Nvidia, their 6xxx series was the first to support DirectX9c. 6800 Ultra AGP was the best AGP card for a long time. Do NOT get any nvidia card older than 6xxx series.

For AMD/ATI, you want an x1950pro AGP, which was already something of a niche item when it came out so they are harder to find. Their previous X800/X850 line was much more popular but these cards can do ONLY DirectX9b / Shader Model 2.0b.

6800 series AGP Nvidia cards are going to be the easiest to find on eBay. Nvidia has great driver support and even supports these cards with the latest driver still.

There were some niche AMD cards released later on, the 3850 and 4670/4650 AGP. They both still command a high price premium and have already been abandoned to the legacy driver. They are your only options however if you want DirectX 10/10.1.
 
Ok I pulled out the power supply. I forgot I gave him a power supply a couple of years ago. It's a dell 305 watt, which is probably more than it came with. He's got one hd, one cd drive, nothing else plugged into expansion slots.

The current card is a radeon 8500 which pulls about 38 watts if what I googled is correct. So I would think anything close to that would probably be ok. Not sure what the total system consumption is.
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
I think I have an x800 AGP in my closet. Is that the best here so far?
Click to expand...

The 4650 would be the best mentioned here so far.

X800 will only do DirectX9b / Shader model 2.0b. Even back in 2007/2008 when I was still running an X800XT-PE with my Dual Xeon AGP setup, there were games that wouldn't run because it couldn't do DirectX9c.
 
GotNoRice said:
Radeon 9800, etc although they are classic cards, are too old. They only support DirectX 9a.

You can still get by with a DirectX9 card, as long as it supports DirectX9c / Shader Model 3.0

For Nvidia, their 6xxx series was the first to support DirectX9c. 6800 Ultra AGP was the best AGP card for a long time. Do NOT get any nvidia card older than 6xxx series.

For AMD/ATI, you want an x1950pro AGP, which was already something of a niche item when it came out so they are harder to find. Their previous X800/X850 line was much more popular but these cards can do ONLY DirectX9b / Shader Model 2.0b.

6800 series AGP Nvidia cards are going to be the easiest to find on eBay. Nvidia has great driver support and even supports these cards with the latest driver still.

There were some niche AMD cards released later on, the 3850 and 4670/4650 AGP. They both still command a high price premium and have already been abandoned to the legacy driver. They are your only options however if you want DirectX 10/10.1.
Click to expand...


You, sir, are a fine example of why I love this forum.
 
jojo69 said:
You, sir, are a fine example of why I love this forum.
Click to expand...

+1 you guys are an amazing wealth of information. Im a geek who doesnt have time to keep up with all this shit. lol. Glad some of you do have the time! Love this place
 
Looks like it has two 12v rails, with a max of 264watts... not sure how much of this is used by other stuff/available for the video card... anyone?
 
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18 amps on the 12 volt rail. That is all.

Should be adequate for older AGP cards. My only issue with the power supply would be actual supplied wattage. Sure it SAYS it's a 305 watt...but that doesn't mean that it is. Especially under load and high heat output.

I would safely assume that the power supply is either what Dell says it is or it's probably closer to a 200-250 watt.

For some of these AGP cards like 3850/4650 I would strongly recommend a better power supply at the least. 400 watts minimum. However, the current one might just work, I would just be worried about the actual quality and reliability of it.

Hope this helps! :)
 
How about this one

"The ATI Radeon™ HD 4550 graphics card consumes less than 25 watts under full load, making it the ideal choice for implementation across a large diverse install base of desktop PCs."

From ati's website, if I'm correct I guess that card would only draw about 2 amps and would be more than adequate performance wise, and would probably be easier on the power supply than the current radeon 8500.
 
I have both a 6800GT and ati 4650 AGP for sale. Just need to dig them out of my dungeon and test them....
 
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