Some AGP advice needed

[Camojoe]

I want to extend the life of my machine for a while longer before moving over to PCI, Core2Duo etc etc.

 

I currently have the following:

AMD64 3200+

1GB RAM

Radeon X800PRO AGP

 

I have been looking at the following cards:

7600GT

- This seems to be quite a good card at a decent price, even here in South Africa.

7800GS 256MB

- Someone recommended this card over the 7600GT, by unlocking some of the pipes wit hsomething like Rivatuner, but I have read that it is not really possible for the 7 Series cards.

Gainward Bliss 7800GS 512MB Golden Sample

-How does this card compare to the 256MB 7800GS?

-It is double the price of the 7600GT, but I do not *really* want to spend that much, unless the performance gain will be tremendous.

ATI X1950PRO

-I believe this a good card to get but also expensive... but cant find it in SA. Depending on recommendation etc. I might look at importing it, depending on price etc.

 

I do not really want to spend a fortune to extend my machine's lifespan and I have been fairly happy with the current configuration (easy to please you see *grin*) The current machine will become a Media Centre when I upgrade to my new machine later this year.

 

I would appreciate any feedback.

[Thraxz]

Well, the 1950pro is easily the best card but if it's more than $20-30 more than the 7800GS it's not worth it really.

 

There is very little difference in performance between the 512 and 256 versions of the GS. I've owned a 7800GS agp myself and with my 3.9GHz P4 it could break 100k in AQ3.

 

P.S. I strongly suggest you fill out a signature containing the info about your rig that mine does. It can be plain text. It helps us help you.

 

I'd not bother moving to a 7600 it'll barely be better than what you've got. At least, not worth the money dropped on it.

[suedenim]

Check this out:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html

 

the 7600 won't give you much beyond SM3 support.

 

the 7800 will give you a bit of a boost and almost free AA and AF

 

I have the X1950PRO so I am obviously biased to this but it made a big difference coming from my 6800. I can use AA and AF in FEAR and run most other games at my monitors max res (1280x1024)

[poochball]

Another X1950 Pro owner here.

 

Just some words of advice, you need quite a beefy PSU for this bad boy to work. Even mine seems to be struggling! But I could also have a faulty card.

 

It is a very nice card. I picked mine up in the uk for £146 which I was quite happy to pay.

 

I can play Counter Strike maxed out comfortably.

 

Also in order to keep this thing cool I need to run the stock cooler at 100% which means it is quite noisy. I think that there are some X1950's from Powercolour which have a better cooling solution than on the Sapphire which I have. I am definately gonna have to go all Zalman on mine

 

In all honesty though mate, If you can hang out till a little while later, I would save the money and then proceed with your plans to go Core 2, PCI-E etc.

 

Plus it means you get a bit more value out of your current system!

[jhempstead]

I think I would hold out for pci-e if I were you. The x1950 pro is ~ $220 in agp, and ~$180 in pci-e. You would gain a little with the x1950, but I don't think it would be worth $$$, not over the x800 anyway.