AGP card still kicking

[thehandler]

What do you think guys, if I have to stay with AGP for the moment,
Here are the upper end cards I can get for an AGP interface.
Tell me of these cards, which has the best price/performance value.
Thank much.

Nvidia:
7950GT $299.00
7600GS
7800GS $180.00
7800GTX
7600GS $100.00

ATI:
X1650PRO $70.00
X1950GT $130.00
X2600XT $170.00

[T-Storm]

Radeon® X1950 Pro 512 MB Viper AGP $199.99
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...682&lid=585553
Usually Ships: 6+ Weeks?????????????

Or get the x1950GT and overclock it.

[Kzar]

I remember that AMD/ATI would release the 3850 on AGP so maybe you could wait for that.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...100-agp-market

[thehandler]

hum, very good point. mike

I remember that AMD/ATI would release the 3850 on AGP so maybe you could wait for that.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...100-agp-market

[thehandler]

This looks to be an awesome card but, I'm not sure my system will suport the 1950 pro anyway. here are the requirements for it:

Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD® Athlon® 64 FX CPU's
CPU running at 2.4 GHz or higher
450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended (assumes fully loaded system

Radeon® X1950 Pro 512 MB Viper AGP $199.99
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...682&lid=585553
Usually Ships: 6+ Weeks?????????????

Or get the x1950GT and overclock it.

[HonestJohn]

This looks to be an awesome card but, I'm not sure my system will suport the 1950 pro anyway. here are the requirements for it:

Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD® Athlon® 64 FX CPU's
CPU running at 2.4 GHz or higher
450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended (assumes fully loaded system

Is this your power supply? If it is, then you meet the requirements providing you PSU is of decent quality and your +12v rail hasn't degraded significantly .....

http://www.overclockers.com/articles941/

[thehandler]

no no that is not my specs, I pasted that here from the specs for the
1950PRO card's minnimun requirements section.
My specs are in my sig below.
Thank you for the nice write up on the cards, that is invaluable information chief. mike

Abit NF7-S r.2.0
XP-2600 Mobil Barton
Thermalright AX-7/ TT Smartfan 2.
Twinmos/Winbond PC-3200, 1 gig,
2 x 512 megs, with Heatspreaders.
Sapphire 9700 PRO vid card .
Omega optimized driver.
WD SATA Raptors (2) RAID 0 (gaming)
Maxtor 80gig IDE 133 storage drive.
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.
TTGI Superflowers 550watt PSU.
Thermaltake Xaser III V1000A Case.
21” Samsung LCD monitor.
LOGITECH THX Z-5300 5.1 soround.
XP-PRO OS

Is this your power supply? If it is, then you meet the requirements providing you PSU is of decent quality and your +12v rail hasn't degraded significantly .....

http://www.overclockers.com/articles941/

[HonestJohn]

no no that is not my specs, I pasted that here from the specs for the
1950PRO card's minnimun requirements section.
My specs are in my sig below.
Thank you for the nice write up on the cards, that is invaluable information chief. mike

Abit NF7-S r.2.0
XP-2600 Mobil Barton
Thermalright AX-7/ TT Smartfan 2.
Twinmos/Winbond PC-3200, 1 gig,
2 x 512 megs, with Heatspreaders.
Sapphire 9700 PRO vid card .
Omega optimized driver.
WD SATA Raptors (2) RAID 0 (gaming)
Maxtor 80gig IDE 133 storage drive.
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.
TTGI Superflowers 550watt PSU.
Thermaltake Xaser III V1000A Case.
21” Samsung LCD monitor.
LOGITECH THX Z-5300 5.1 soround.
XP-PRO OS

You're very welcome and I did see your power supply in your sig/post. The link I gave you was for a TTGI Superflower 550watt PSU and I wanted to know if this was the one you're using. Here it is again ....

http://www.overclockers.com/articles941/

If this is your power supply in the link, then it has a single 30a +12v rail.

[fluxu8]

Radeon® X1950 Pro 512 MB Viper AGP $199.99
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...682&lid=585553
Usually Ships: 6+ Weeks?????????????

Or get the x1950GT and overclock it.

Here's the "Gamer" version, but with 256mb & ships within 24hrs....is there a big difference between 256 & 512mb?
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=A0948347

I'm trying to decide on the XFX 7900GS....
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=A1307743

or the X1950 Pro....just kinda confused on the amount of memory available for the 1950.

[uddarts]

XFX GeForce 7900 GS 256MB AGP

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...=712&chart=275


ud

[HonestJohn]

I went through a slew of "high-end" AGP cards since the X1950 Pro was released by Visiontek in the November of 2006. I tried every card below except for the X1950GT and my comments are based on what I've read rather than owning the actual card. I also left the Gainward 7800GS+ Golden Sample GLH (20-pipe) off the list which I used for a day before sending it back. It wasn't as fast as the 7950GT and costed a lot more.

X1950 Pro 512MB:
You have several choices of manufacturers and this is the card you should get if you're power supply can handle it. Best Bang for the buck out of all the top AGP cards in my opinion. Below are the three I tried ....

Visiontek X1950 Pro 256:
Decent card but the slowest of the 3 Pro's I tried. They went with a slightly different PCB design than the other manufacturers including an alternate VRM (voltage regulator module) design, which may have made them less prone to overheating. Unfortunately Visiontek also left a readable temp diode off the card so no fan speed adjustments, fan ran at 100% 24/7 and no temperature monitoring. Gecube incidentally also uses the same PCB design as the Visiontek card.

Sapphire 512MB X1950 Pro:
Was a trouble free card for me, and could also overclock it some with just the stock cooler. Power recommendations are the only negative thing I have to say, which goes for all the Pro's. 450w with a +12v rail (single or combied) @ 30a. You may get by with less but it's a crapshoot. (My Favorite of all AGP Cards I tried)

HIS ICEQ3 Turbo X1950 Pro 512MB:
Pushed my luck a little, and on the third Pro I tried and struck out big-time. This was my last Pro which was a very bad experience because of design flaws with the Revision 1 cards. Had to RMA two of them for the same problem before giving up. (Core was clocked to high by HIS OC default) They later released a Revision 2 card which fixed the previous issues with the Revision 1 cards. Just be careful of the Rev.1 cards though which still may be floating around in circulation should you go for a HIS.

Sapphire X1950GT 256MB:
Basically a X1950 Pro with lower clocks. I believe Sapphire makes the only AGP part. Same power requirements as the Pro and you have a good shot at overclocking to Pro speeds. Card can be found pretty cheaply at Ewiz.com.

Gecube X1950XT 512MB:
Only Gecube manufacturers this card which is the fastest AGP card there is. Even higher power requirements than the X1950 Pro. It requires three molex connections which includes the 1 for TEC cooler, or 1 PCI-E connector and 1 molex. The card is quite large because of dual-fan cooler which cools well, but exhausts air into the case. No ramsinks on the GDDR3 memory either due to cooler design.

XFX 7950GT 512MB: (XFX also makes a 7900GS AGP which is not as fast)
XFX is the only manufacturer. Very good card. Lifetime Warranty sevrice for US customers. Low Power Supply Requirements - 22a +12v rail and 400w. Performance between X1950 Pro and X1950XT. More exoensive than the Pro and last time I looked it was hard to find. This was my last AGP card and you likely wouldn't need to upgrade your supply to use it.

2600XT/Pro: (not a high-end AGP part at all / but it does have DX10)
Newest AGP cards and DX10. Not the best gaming cards. Power requirements are low.

HD 3850's:
Heard a lot of rumors and speculation but haven't seen anything definite, so you could be in for a long wait, but who knows.

[HonestJohn]

Here's the "Gamer" version, but with 256mb & ships within 24hrs....is there a big difference between 256 & 512mb?
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=A0948347

I'm trying to decide on the XFX 7900GS....
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=A1307743

or the X1950 Pro....just kinda confused on the amount of memory available for the 1950.

See my comments above regarding the Visiontek and unreadable Temp Diode.

Here's a link to a decent article showing the differences between using 256MB and 512MB of VRAM .....

http://www.pureoverclock.com/article33.html

[madhatter256]

AGP just bottlenecks those things, man....

[jedihobbit]

Listen to HonestJohn, the man is an AGP testing fool!! I met him over at abit's forum will researching the very same thing for a build I did for a friend using the NF7-S rev2. We ended up with the VisionTek because of ebay (personally I'm a sapphire fan myself!) and he is very pleased. Just recently played with it again for oc'ing and he only has 435Ws (ref http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=390560 for S & Gs! )

As for the ones who say dump it all and go new tech, my friend if the system runs the games you want (as my friend above a C & C playing fool) then get as much time out of it as possible. I would and save my rubbles for when amb gets their act together later next year or the next.

[speedfrk]

Powercolor has the 3850 AGP card listed on their website already, so it shouldn't be too long... This will add some life to all the X2 939 systems that are out there (like mine).