AGP card for a P4

[pumaz]

Building a machine based on a P4 3.06ghz northwood and would like to know what's the fastest AGP card I can put in before the CPU bottlenecks it?

 

[paradigm]

Probably just about get away with something 7900GT levels of performance, but it all depends on what resolution really.

 

[opethdisciple]

Back in the P4 era I was running a 7950gx2.....

When I bought the card there was no better cpu other than the king P4

*edit.... it was PCI-E

 

[pumaz]

Sorry forgot to mention, I'm building a cheap HTPC from parts i've been given. So far I have 2 x P4 Northwood CPU's one is a 3GHz and the other is a 3.06GHz (I'm assuming the 3.06 is best), 2 x Motherboards (Asus PC4800-E & Mobo from a Advent) 4 x 512MB Memory and a 128MB Nvidia FX 5200. I also have various HD's and optical drive.

I'm sure the weak link in the system is the FX5200 So i'm really looking for something that will perform HTPC duties as well as play games like CSS and Trackmania at 1360 x 768 or 720p Resolutions with decent settings. But i don't want a card that's going to be held back by the CPU. It would also be nice to have a card that drivers are still written for, as the FX5200 for example is no longer supported.

 

[bells]

I would go for the best agp card which is the 4670

 

[Steeps]

Just built a shuttle with 1gb ram using a P4 3ghz northwood (make sure it's the 800mhz FSB and not the 533) and a 6800gt, had no issues with trackmania and handled 720p content no problem. I used to use the same setup but with a x800xt and that too handled CSS at 1280*1024 no problems (aa/af not that high)

 

[pumaz]

bells - The 4670 seems like a good card but it's quite expensive and would the P4 hold it back?

Steeps - Am i right in thinking the P4 3GHz is a 800MHz FSB? I have a x800xt but it appears to be dead, the fan spins and the PC run with no bleeps but it wont display a picture

 

[sastusbulbas]

I was using an HIS IceQ HD3850 512mb AGP card for my old HTPC, along with 2gb of PC3500 XMS Pro.

 

[Troezar]

I have a brand new 3850 HD Sapphire unopened. Pretty decent AGP card I think...

 

[thingemajib]

in terms of power, the 3850 is the most powerful AGP card around (had 320sp and 256bit bus compared to the 4670s 320sp and 128bit bus). Although it probably will be held back and a tad on the power hungry side for a HTPC.

You could try one of the hd36xx cards (120sp, 128bit bus). If thats not enough, then go with a 46xx

 

[pumaz]

Interested in the 3850 if i could get one at a decent price, I have read that in 99% of situations the 3850 and the 4670 are on par but obviously the 4670 runs quieter, cooler and draws less juice.

out of interest what would be the closest Nvidia AGP card to a 3850/4670?

 

[mattyfez]

out of interest what would be the closest Nvidia AGP card to a 3850/4670?

I have an AGP Nvidia 7800GS oc in my A64 3400 pc, used as media center. I belive it was one of the most powerfull Nvidia AGP cards, as it was at the time everything was going PCIe, and was actually a PCIe card retro fitted for AGP.

I think the absolute top one from nividia was the 7950 gt on AGP.

.

 

[pumaz]

Got all excited this morning, while rummaging through my loft i found a Sapphire HD 2600 XT. Thought perfect until i realised it was PCI-E

I've narrowed it down to buying a 2nd hand ATI 3850 or 4670 would prefer a the latter as it's more efficient. Will put a post up on Wanted later and see what if anything turns up.