Upgrading an X850XT

[BABABA]

Hi All

I am new here so if it doesn't read 100% accurate, I apologise now.
I have a pentium 3.04 CPU, 2GB RAM and a 450 PSU. I am running a ASUS
P4V800D-X motherboard which runs 4XPCI-E and 8X AGP.

I run at the moment, an X850XT PCI Express Graphics Card running at 4X (motherboard does not run 16X) so I presume I have not been getting 16X graphic power from this board. Am I right in assuming if it was an AGP 8X I would have got much better graphics?

I want to buy ATI Radeon HD 3650 AGP8X, the one with GDDR 3 RAM and
512MB (as a final upgrade for my AGP system and thus I am told it will run with my 450 PSU). Could you tell me will I get a reasonable upgrade i.e. graphic power, I do not run crisis etc, I run Microsoft Train Simulator and add-ons for that, which although are becoming more graphic intensive are no way on a par with crisis and all latest top games.

Thank you for any replies in advance.

 

[J.D]

Welcome to the forum .

ATI have less problems with PCI-E bandwidth than Nvidia but I think you'll still get a hit but would see an improvement over your X850XT. I would however think about an upgrade as the new Intel CPUs use a lot less power, generate less heat and are much much faster.

As for 8x releasing a lot more of the X850XT than 4x would. From the link below I'd say probably not but it could be different in the games you play.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-8.html