AGP GFX card for old PC.

Briton · 26 Jan 2007 at 17:04

Hi all. I have an old AMD Athlon 2500 XP and 512 MB of PC2100 RAM as a second system. I'd like to upgrade it to and was thinking of replacing the GF4600Ti with a better card and adding another 512MB of RAM.
What do you think would be the best card worth putting in that system, (it's x4 AGP BTW), before the CPU became the bottleneck?
Cheers.

peetee · 26 Jan 2007 at 17:09

7600GS should show a massive improvement. overclock the 2.5

if you can? or were you one of the people who didnt buy the 2.5 mobile processor and got the locked none-mobile

Cairnsey · 26 Jan 2007 at 19:02

I have a rig of similar age and performance and saw a very good increase by upgrading to a 7600gs and that was from a 9700pro, however I RMA'd it because I changed my mind and wanted a 7600GT as it's only £20 more (haven't ordered it yet). Would've went for the x1950 pro but I'm concerned that my PSU won't be able to power it. But yeah, get more RAM first.

Briton · 26 Jan 2007 at 19:29

Thanks guys. Haven't got the mobile processor but I think I'll keep my eye out for one and sell mine.

BTW...the 7600 is 8X AGP isn't it? Is that likely to be a bit of a waste on a 4X Motherboard?

Cairnsey · 26 Jan 2007 at 20:05

I was using a 4x AGP board as well and got good results. I can't imagine there's a lot of difference between the two :rolleyes:

peetee · 26 Jan 2007 at 21:25

to be honest its not going to make too much difference, more ram is more needed. I'd just get the GS and put the £20 towards a new PC fund, because you're really due an upgrade

not worth sourcing a mobile unless its dirt cheap mate!

Briton · 26 Jan 2007 at 23:23

peetee said:
to be honest its not going to make too much difference, more ram is more needed. I'd just get the GS and put the £20 towards a new PC fund, because you're really due an upgrade not worth sourcing a mobile unless its dirt cheap mate!

I've already upgraded to an E6600, 2GB RAM and a 7900GT...this is the old system that my son is using.

peetee · 27 Jan 2007 at 01:25

ooohhh ok then, treat him to a 7600GT then if its not a stop gap

Quixote · 27 Jan 2007 at 01:58

Think you should get another 512 of RAM with a 7600GS in preference.
Or even 512 more & a 7300gt. I think that would provide a more balanced system.

Junk · 27 Jan 2007 at 09:09

tomshardware did a recent article on cards with exactly that processor.

although your 4x agp will be a bottleneck is you slam a x1900 in there

deffo get another 512 of rams though.

peetee · 27 Jan 2007 at 11:40

why add a 7300GT? that just creates a new bottleneck? not v much performance will be lost with a higher end card, so may aswell invest in one thats bang for the buck, 7600GT or x1950pro.

Briton · 27 Jan 2007 at 13:21

Thanks for your replies...I'm definitely going to get another 512MB of RAM and probably a 7600. BTW...what would be the ATI equivalent to that? Don't know much about them as I've not had an ATI card for a few years.

snowdog · 27 Jan 2007 at 14:51

Briton said:
what would be the ATI equivalent to that?

pci-e: i dont know tbh
agp: none i think, there are either slower cards and there is the fastest agp card : ati x1950pro

melbourne720 · 29 Jan 2007 at 09:48

Briton said:
Thanks for your replies...I'm definitely going to get another 512MB of RAM and probably a 7600. BTW...what would be the ATI equivalent to that? Don't know much about them as I've not had an ATI card for a few years.

7600GT would be good, but 512MB extra of RAM should be done also. 7600 GS + 512 a good compromise.

There isn't a decent ATi in the low-mid range atm. The only two decent new ATi cards are the x1950 Pro and the x1950XT, and they are firmly in the mid to high range.

deadeyedic30 · 29 Jan 2007 at 16:47

Get 1Gb of pc3200 ram as pc2100 runs on a 133 fsb where as your cpu runs on a 166 fsb so is being held back by the slow speed of the ram. Pc3200 ram runs at fsb200 and would allow you to push your cpu from an XP2500 to XP3200 simply by upping the fsb, mobo permitting.

SinaiSound · 29 Jan 2007 at 17:18

deadeyedic30 said:
Get 1Gb of pc3200 ram as pc2100 runs on a 133 fsb where as your cpu runs on a 166 fsb so is being held back by the slow speed of the ram. Pc3200 ram runs at fsb200 and would allow you to push your cpu from an XP2500 to XP3200 simply by upping the fsb, mobo permitting.

PC2100 actually runs at 100 FSB

semi-pro waster · 29 Jan 2007 at 17:23

The rough equivalent of a 7600GT in ATI terms is an X800XT although I think you will struggle to find one new, secondhand though it should be fairly reasonably priced.

As for the difference between AGP 4x and AGP 8x, it is only about 5% maximum generally speaking if memory serves although it can vary slightly more but I wouldn't worry about it too much.

deadeyedic30 · 29 Jan 2007 at 17:26

Hefner said:
PC2100 actually runs at 100 FSB

So what is 133 then ? as 3200=200 and 2700=166 ?

peetee · 29 Jan 2007 at 18:26

deadeyedic30 said:
So what is 133 then ? as 3200=200 and 2700=166 ?

doesnt really matter - back to the point, OP should invest in upgrading to 1gb of 3200ddr and overclock, and buy a 7600GS or GT, depending on budget

EffBee · 29 Jan 2007 at 19:11

Can I advise the OP to use his windows task manager (assuming Win 2K or XP) to see how much memory is actally needed. Load the task manager and load everything ever likely to run concurrently. If games load the game with highest memory requirement. The objective is to cut out paging. All that copying from memory to hard disk and back is a killer. There is no point adding more memory than you actually need and there is probably no more effective upgrade you can do than getting rid of paging with the right amount of memory.

I've just taken a similar specced system from 512MB to 2GB to play multiple instances of my favourite online game alongside excel and MS Internet explorer and the difference is quite simply stunning.