The best AGP based GPU?

[mrboo]

First of all its my first thread in the PC section of this forum, so Hi to everyone here

Now there comes a time in every PC gamers life when they feel the need to upgrade there GPU, now as my system is lacking in the power department its time to upgrade to something more manly. My current rig runs a Geforce FX5200 ( Dont laugh ) and i feel that its time it gets thrown in the bin. Now as ive also come into some funding i can afford to spend about £250 on a new GPU. My motherboard is only AGP and im not botherd about upgrading to PCI-E as that will be done in a couple of years time when i get a complete new PC. So if can anyone could recomened any great AGP cards it be much apreciated. )

Cheers

MrBoo.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Hi!

What kind of CPU do you have and how much memory?

BTW-The answer is probably going to be the AIW X800 XT as this question has been asked a few times before and that's currently the best value in a performance AGP part:

Another 512Mb and a new viddy card should help a lot.

Snipe is right, an X800 would do...and there have just been some nice price cuts to the ATi All In Wonder X800 XT which would game ya proper and has a TV tuner built in...and for $179 ain't bad.

I'd get the AIW X800 XT over the X800GTO, the XT has 16 pipes where the GTO only has 12.

EDITED BITS: Oh, and if you can't wait the four days until they get more in stock you can always pick up one from somewhere else...cheapest I see is $161 shipped out of Dayton, OH.

EDITED BITS II: Double-oh, give up any thought of getting a 7800GS. They start out at $292 and go up from there.

I had no idea there was that much difference in price, the X800 XT seems a no-brainer.

 

[mrboo]

I have a 3ghz P4 and 1gig of RAM ( soon to be 2gig )

Thanks for the reply digitalwanderer

EDIT : Is a 7800GS AGP a better, faster card?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Please call me Dig or Digi, much easier to type.

CPU and ram seem ok, you'll see a bloody AMAZING difference upgrading to that card.

I'm not the biggest fan of AIW solutions since I prefer the flexibility of an add-in card, but I would buy that AIW X800 XT just to use as a gaming card without ever loading the AIW drivers just for the deal you can get on it.

 

[mrboo]

Please call me Dig or Digi, much easier to type.

CPU and ram seem ok, you'll see a bloody AMAZING difference upgrading to that card.

I'm not the biggest fan of AIW solutions since I prefer the flexibility of an add-in card, but I would buy that AIW X800 XT just to use as a gaming card without ever loading the AIW drivers just for the deal you can get on it.

Thats was i was thinking just looking at the AIW X800 XT, i was like "i dont need all that shit, i just wanna play games"

Another thing i forgot to mension is that im in the UK, and over here the 7800GS AGP is not very expensive ( below £200 ) so knowing that should i still go for the AIW X800 XT or should i go with the 7800GS?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Whichever you feel more comfortable with then, they're both very close in performance. If you're into Linux the 7800 GS would probably be the smarter of the two for you.

If you're more comfortable with nVidia than ATi and they're about the same price I'd definitely recommend the 7800GS to ya. I just felt the X800 XT was a no-brainer because of the price difference in my country, got all ethnocentric again.

 

[Geo]

Should we just put a "the best AGP gpus are:" sticky at the top of the forum?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Nah, it keeps changing every few weeks anyways.

 

[mrboo]

7800GS is only ABIT more expensive so it looks like i'll be getting that then, cheers for the advice digi

 

[digitalwanderer]

Good luck and I hope it games you well, make sure you come back please and tell us how you like it.

 

[INKster]

Gainward's 7800 GS+ is actually the best AGP card ever (it isn't really a 7800 GS, but a 7900 GT with 512MB of GDDR3).

 

[obobski]

if i remember correctly it's a 7800GT, but it costs a fortune (the Bliss 7800GS, clocked to 7800GT levels, dual slot cooling, etc, nice card) however i've only seem them in europe, not the US...

personally i'd just go for one of eVGA's or BFG's OC'ed editions, which keep the performance rather high and keep the card rather small.

another idea: i'm not sure if a 7600GS offers the power you want/need for games, however there are a number of AGP 8x editions of the 7600GS, might be worth looking at

 

[INKster]

if i remember correctly it's a 7800GT, but it costs a fortune (the Bliss 7800GS, clocked to 7800GT levels, dual slot cooling, etc, nice card) however i've only seem them in europe, not the US...

personally i'd just go for one of eVGA's or BFG's OC'ed editions, which keep the performance rather high and keep the card rather small.

another idea: i'm not sure if a 7600GS offers the power you want/need for games, however there are a number of AGP 8x editions of the 7600GS, might be worth looking at

No, there's one with a 7800 GT (20 pixel shaders, 110nm), but there's also one other model with a true 7900 GT (24 ps, 90nm), but with double the framebuffer (512MB), running at much higher clocks for both the core and memory, and a NV Silencer cooler on top:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Nvidia_AGP_Graphics_Cards.html

 

[mrboo]

Gainward's 7800 GS+ is actually the best AGP card ever (it isn't really a 7800 GS, but a 7900 GT with 512MB of GDDR3).

Thanks Ordered

 

[Albuquerque]

Thanks Ordered

Yup, I bought one of those for my rig. It was a bit pricey to pick up here in the US, but the previous poster is exaclty correct: It's a G71 chip running with all 24 texture and pixel pipes open along with the standard 8 vertex pipes and 16 ROPS.

They are a bit processor bottlenecked on a 3ghz Intel processor, but overclocking to ~4ghz made up most of it. The card also overclocks quite well; I'm pulling about 550 core and 1500 memory speeds, which yielded 3DMark06 scores into the 5000's and 3DMark05 scores in the low 8000's. (take note: I'm on an Intel HT rig , true dual core rigs score better, and AMD rigs score MUCH better)

Still, I haven't found a game yet that I can't play with gamma-correct AA, TAA and AF at 1920x1080 resolution. I'm loving it!

 

[mrboo]

Yup, I bought one of those for my rig. It was a bit pricey to pick up here in the US, but the previous poster is exaclty correct: It's a G71 chip running with all 24 texture and pixel pipes open along with the standard 8 vertex pipes and 16 ROPS.

They are a bit processor bottlenecked on a 3ghz Intel processor, but overclocking to ~4ghz made up most of it. The card also overclocks quite well; I'm pulling about 550 core and 1500 memory speeds, which yielded 3DMark06 scores into the 5000's and 3DMark05 scores in the low 8000's. (take note: I'm on an Intel HT rig , true dual core rigs score better, and AMD rigs score MUCH better)

Still, I haven't found a game yet that I can't play with gamma-correct AA, TAA and AF at 1920x1080 resolution. I'm loving it!

Thanks for info Alb, i really cant wait for this chip now

 

[obobski]

oh wow, didn't realize a new one was out

where can I buy in the US?

 

[Albuquerque]

oh wow, didn't realize a new one was out

where can I buy in the US?

You can't buy them in the US unfortunately. I picked mine up from Overclockers.co.uk as they do allow shipping to the US. Be prepared to spend a pretty penny; mine cost $430 including shipping, but was on sale at the time. The typical price was almost $500 USD last I recall...

 

[Zapata]

Yep, the Gainward 7800GS got an excellent review in one of the top British computer magazines, Custom PC,.

http://www.custompc.co.uk/custompc/reviews/88847/gainward-bliss-7800gs-agp.html

http://www.gainward.net/products/product.php?products_id=48

Just as an aside, I would say it might in certain people's cases be worth upgradeing the motherboard rather than upgrading one's AGP card. To take an example, if you have a 754 socket Athlon 64 based rig with AGP you can swap your current motherboard for the ASRock K8SLI-esSATA2 which will give you PCI Express and SLI and is "Windows Vista Hardware Ready".

http://www.asrock.com/product/K8SLI-eSATA2.htm

http://www.asrock.com/product/index.htm

Saludos Amigos
Zapata

 

[NRP]

I love the Gainward card. I'm going to continue loving it until I upgrade to a Vista/D3D10 rig. Even then, I'm going to put this card in my backup PC and continue to love it.