x1950 Pro AGP....am I wasting my money??

Save your money for a full system upgrade.

That $200 can go a long ways towards a full system upgrade.

 

It really depends on the games and res you play at. I'd say for more shader intensive stuff at 1280x1024 with 4xAA / 16xAF you'd notice a very healthy improvement with that new card.

If you game at 1024 x 768 though, or are playing less intensive games then don't bother. Save the dosh for a big upgrade later.


Honestly, if it were my cash I'd just hold on to it and upgrade later when I could afford to. Unless there was a particular game that I had to play which only supported DX9c.

 

I am pleased with my X1950Pro 512MB AGP card that replaced an X800XT in an A64 3500+ 2MB PC last week.

If you're saving up for another 12+ months before you buy a new PC I'd say go for it.

It doesn't sound like you've got a specific game you want to play, so maybe you aren't so fussy. But I think 30-50% faster is a fair assessment of the gain you'll get. I dare say minimum frame rates are considerably better - much more so than average frame rates would indicate.

Jawed

 

you can compare the 2 cards here
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2006.html?modelx=33&model1=575&model2=607&chart=196

 

That PSU would be more than enough...

 

you mean 1536MB RDRAM? if so.. wow that was expensive shit! I understand you'd have trouble to give up something you spent a lot on.
that card is expensive, maybe get a 256MB variant.
your PSU is nice and if some cable thing is needed you'll find it in the card's box.
I'd say don't get it if you don't see a good fps increase at low res with your current card, as you wouldn't see it either with the new one. A better CPU is also often a condition for good min framerates.

 

If you're gonna do it, grab the 512mb card. Why? Because originally i was thinking the same as the poster above me -- 512 is gonna be overkill on a system like that because what are you gonna play, et al...

But then I realized -- there's quite a few games you can play with "only" 1.5Gb of ram; quite a few of us were at just a gig at the begining of this year; quite a few still ARE at just a gig. Games certainly will be taking more advantage of bigger and badder memory options, but texure memory and framebuffer will still be important. There's quite a few games you can play with "only" a P4/3Ghz (or equivalent); quite a few of us here are still there too. Games indeed depend on both, but more and more, you'd probably rather play at the higher resolutions anyway, which will require the bigger GPU horsepower.

For the marginal pricetag, I say do it. You'll get a healthy bump today, and it will stretch your system a bit until you REALLY need to upgrade in another year.

Example: I bought one of the uber-rare Gainward 7800GS+ AGP cards (a full 7900GT, all pipes open, with 512mb of ram) at the beginning of Q2 last year for about $400. Yeah, pricey, but it was by-far the best thing you could get on AGP -- and it still at least ties with the best available now on AGP. And I tell you what, I haven't yet "regretted" my decision, other than the obvious pricing that goes down by about 40% each year.

So I say get it, enjoy it, and you'll be able to keep that rig for another six to twelve months before it becomes a boat anchor

 

If you haven't already then I would try out Cat 7.7 - going as late as possible will have the most bugfixes.

 

I wouldn't recommend a new graphics card for that old system.

Having just made the switch from a 3GHz P4/HT to a Core2 system I easily see how weak the P4 really is.

It's not worth it mate. Save more money and go for a dual or quad Core 2 setup instead or whatever else fast that intel or AMD releases from now until it's time for you to go shopping. The difference really is worlds apart.

The P4 won't carry you much farther. Especially newer games than WoW ran terribly on ym old system.

Peace.

 

Dude, I just went from 2 crossfired X1800GTOs to a 2900 XT on a 3500+ AMD64 w/3Gb on XP and the difference is just bloody stunning!

Don't waste your money upgrading your CPU, beef up your GPU!

 

It's funny how many people don't believe me when I tell them how much my video card upped my systems' playing capabilities. I know I'll see more performance with the newer processors, no argument at all. But when it really comes down to it, a shit-tonne of games out there today are FAR more dependent on your GPU than your CPU.

The balance isn't quite coming back to the CPU side yet either...

 

Yeah a better vidcard will help.


For a while.


And then he'll have painted himself into a corner because that vidcard won't fit into a new system and there's no new CPUs that'll work in his old.

So in the end it's just a waste.
Peace.

 

Rainbow Man, I'm not really sure what your point is. You said yourself you upgraded to an entirely new system. So you actually don't really have a clue which part added the most to your gaming experience. The video cards, or the processor...

Personally I would say your decision rests on when you're going to potentially do a full system upgrade. If you're thinking next year around this time then I'd say go for the X1950 Pro, if you're thinking six months from now then I'd say wait. You won't get "tons" of life out of your card but it'll certainly be an upgrade and should let you ride out sorta kinda comfortably till your next upgrade.

 

I beleive you Alby.....
when i upgrade my cpu i always go at least 100% faster and its always been a case of "Hmm.. thats nice" never "zomg teh difference"

 

I went from 2 crossfired 1950xtx's to 2x 2900xt's in CF, and it was a big difference.

 

Really i looked at some benchmarks for 1950xtx vs 2900xt (only in single card though not crossfired)
(I assume the both scale equally when crossfired ?)
and the improvement is only about 30% in the best cases going down to under 5% in the worst cases

what improvements are you getting from crossfire vs crosfire (so to speak)