Corey

iTrader: (1)

Many of you who love to game and own an AGP system may find it hard to locate a decent AGP card capable of playing the latest games to hit the market.

All of the cool fast cards out now seem to be the new PCI Express ones.
Many of us though have mega bucks tied up into an AGP based system, and are not ready yet to build up a brand spankin' new gaming system based on the new PCIe format.

Rejoice, NVIDIA has heard our cries for more power, and recently released the 7800 GS in an AGP format.

Currently there are only about 3 suppliers of this card with:
BFG
XFX
EVGA

Of the 3, the EVGA overclocks theirs from the factory the highest.
Here is a good article, and I will link to another one from Anandtech's site too.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1920033,00.asp

From Anandtech's site, but this one is in general for all of the 7800 GS ones.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2686

EVGA has a few flavors of this card, and the best one is the 2nd one down from the top here.
http://www.evga.com/articles/276.asp

Look at that beautiful thing.
I will not be ready to build my next gaming PC until maybe summer or after.
I am waiting until the new AMD2 format comes out.
That will allow the AMD to run the newer DDR2 memory.

Dublin

I went out looking for one last week, PCI express "Everywhere". Sure there were a few AGP's out there but nothing better than 128 and I've already got that. Wish the price was a little more friendly, now I need to decide on ponying up now or hold tight and start on a new one later. At least my case will still be good to go, I still kinda like the way my yeong yang server cube looks. You just had to post your find . Now it's either flip a coin, or rock/paper/ sissors (kinda hard to play against yourself, I think I cheat).

Dr.Feelgood

I just picked up an ATI X850Pro 256mb AGP card off ebay last night. Per the specs it's a fast card. I will definitely have that in my system for some time before I go the PCIe route. The seller has more he keeps putting up starting at $.99 but are climbing over $150. But still, not bad for a $400 retail card.

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Dubblin, I am now done with my PC.
I was goning to throw it all in a nice black windowed Lian Li B7 Plus case, but I will save that case for my next buildup this summer, the new AMD2s when they arrive.
But my present PC will be able to play anything now, and hopefully Unreal Tournament 2007 when it debuts pretty soon.

The ATI X850Pro 256mb APG is a very good card, I just could not find any locally or on Newegg, then I read the reviews on the new 7800 GS.

Dublin

Well I flipped the coin and an ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 512mb 4x/8x DDR2 won the toss for $168.00. I figure I once paid that for a 3DFX VooDoo 5 5500 64mb card that was used just 3 months and has been gathering dust eversince. With that and the additional 1gig of ram I should be good to go for a while.

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Heck, back around 1999 member Drew and I each paid $300 for the new Creative Annihilator Pro with 32 MB of memory.
I was based on an NVIDIA chip.

Cards these days are still a value for all they can do compared to the antiques I have ran in the past.

Dublin

Got ya beat with my ATI ISA Mach64 2mb with the 4mb upgrade $165 back in the day. I still have it, any takers

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Ha ha ha...
I still might have you beat.

I paid a few hundred back around '98 for a Voodoo II 3D vid card made by Canopus that worked in conjunction with the stock 2 or so MB 2D video card in my old Acer Pentium 90 PC.

Canopus only breifly got into gaming cards back then.
They focus mainly on high end graphics cards for video editing.

Dr.Feelgood

Wow! I wish I'd seen that auction for the X1600!!!! I went from ATI to nvidia 4-5 years or so ago but I stepped back from nvidia back to ATI about 1.5 years ago. I had an FX5200 256mb that stopped running games that it had been all along. After reading some forums and reviews I bought an ATI 9200 and all was good again. I'm still using that one...until the 850Pro gets here.

Corey

iTrader: (1)

I just took an old Asus FX5200 that was mine, then my sons out of his PC Saturday.
Then we put my old ATI 9600 Pro in his.

Needless to say, I was running BattleField 2 Saturday at 1280x1024 in game with all of the eye candy on, and it ran as smooth as silk.

Same with Half Life 2 and Counter Strike Source.
They run much better now.

UT 2004 always ran good though with my 9600 Pro, so I did not see a tremendous jump in graphics to the new card.

Arghhhhh, fighting the resistnace now to throw all of this into that Lian Li black tower.
http://www.coolerguys.com/840556060840.html

snap-on

looks a lot like my quadro

Dublin

Dr. Feelgood there's one "buy it now" on ebay for $182. And Corey I've also got 2 pairs of the 3DFX VooDoo II 12mb PCI's (one pair I won at a LAN party) too bad they wouldn't work beyond 1 pair with an existing card. Probably have at least another dozen or so cards yet. My favorite use to be an STB Diamond Stealth with a wopping 16mb

Dr.Feelgood

Corey, did you have probs with the 5200 too?

Dublin, I might entertain but I've got an x850Pro on its way now. Should be here in a day or 2.

Corey

iTrader: (1)

The 5200 when I built the PC back then did not have enough power to play BF1, as things looked choppy.

Put the ATI 9600 Pro in and BF1 looked great.

However the 9600 Pro was not up to the task of rendering BF2 very good, plus before Xmas I was only running 512 RAM.
Now running 2 GB of RAM, and all is good.

Dr.Feelgood

I'm debating what to put in my 10yo's (my secondary) system when I put it back together...the FX5200 w/256mb or the 9200 w/128mb. I'm leaning on the ATI card only b/c of the trouble I had with the nvidia. My son won't be playing as graphic-intensive games as I do on mine. Any thoughts?