Which AGP card?

[Alex53]

My friend's AGP card died and she's considering upgrading card to a PCI-E as well as new mobo, etc, but she also wants to consider the cheaper option, a new AGP card.

The old one was an NVIDIA 6200. I noticed it costs £35 now, but how much better are these ATI cards for gaming? Mainly to play Lord of the Rings Online.

Asus ATI Radeon HD 3650 Vcool Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (AGP) - Retail
725MHz Core, 512MB 1000MHz DDR2 Memory, 120 Stream Processors, 3yr Warranty with Asus/OcUK.
£74.74


Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3650 512MB DDR2 Dual TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP) - Retail
Microsoft Vista compatible with the awesome power of 120 stream processing units.
£64.39


Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (AGP) - Retail
668MHz Core, 512MB 1656MHz GDDR3 Memory, 320 Stream Processors, 2yr Warranty with Sapphire/OcUK.
£103.49

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&sortby=nameAsc&subid=403&mfrid=

 

[Linx]

Pointless buying an AGP card now, just get a whole new pc, or get another 6200.

 

[Alex53]

Isnt getting another 6200 getting an AGP card? I just want to know if those above are better.

 

[jigger]

Try and get a DDR3 3650.

 

[elpedro]

Buying a new AGP card is like buying a leaded petrol car. If you can, I'd avoid and upgrade to a PCI setup. If not, check out second hand AGP cards, you will be paying a lot more for the performance you're getting purely because AGP is rarer and there are less options available.

 

[jeggsy]

To anwser your question, Yes, the ATI cards are better than the Geforce 6200... But....

Not really worth paying too much money for an AGP based card these days as it's an old technology.

If it was me, I'd be looking for a cheapy 2nd hand card. An ideal card if you could find one would be something like a Geforce 7600 GS or GT 256Mb AGP.These should be not a lot more than that Geforce 6200 but should be a fait bit faster.

What are the specs of the rest of the system ? ?

 

[doiks14]

looking at the things you suggested.. I think you're better off buying a board with PCIe and a cheap PCIe graphics card since AGP should have been wiped out long long time ago anyways.

 

[AtaRo]

An X1650 PRO 512mb GDDR2 AGP is also a decent AGP card and can be had for around £40.You might also be able to get it very cheap if you want to try the auction site.

 

[Alex53]

Thanks for the AGP card suggestions

 

[mame]

Try and get a second hand 7600gt. It's a lot faster than the 6200. I would say that is worth doing for how much it would cost. The x1950pro (I had both AGP cards) is slightly better but needs a half decent PSU, about 450w I think, and is quite a big card. The 7600gt is tiny.

Obviously PCI-E is going to be better (for the choice of cards, if nothing else) but you might find the only practical way to achieve this is to replace everything. Even the case and PSU might be unsuitable for newer and bigger cards.

What is the spec of the system? Even if it was an athlon 64 X2 with 2gig of RAM which is, realistically, about the best AGP based system, it would be expensive to buy a PCI-E motherboard and graphics card and then to have to fit it and re-install windows.

I would either:

A: Buy a 7600gt

or

B: leave that PC untouched and put together a new PC

 

[psychas]

those agp cards much more expensive and slower then simple pci now . i would rather consider upgrade to pci-e slot mobo

 

[mame]

those agp cards much more expensive and slower then simple pci now . i would rather consider upgrade to pci-e slot mobo

AGP is much faster than standard PCI ? and talking about cards of that that age 7600gt, x1950 etc. The AGP versions were no slower than the PCI-E versions.

 

[Ease]

Have you considered a ATI 4650? You can get one for under £40 if you look around a little, and it should play LotR Online for you just fine. Plus they're dead quiet.