My friend wants to upgrade from his crappy radeon 9250 to a good gaming video card.

What video card should he buy?

I'm guessing he has AGP, but just to make sure: What interface does he have? AGP or PCI-E?

Well since the subject says "Best AGP Video Card" I am assuming that it's an AGP card.

From what I've heard it's between the 6600 and the X1600. Not entirely sure on that tho. Look around at some benchmarks and what-not. I'm sure there's enough info from the forumz here to make a good educated decision.

Depends on your budget.

Look at the 'best cards for the money' thread at the top of this forum.

Indeed... if budget isn't a problem... go all out and get an X850XT Platinum.
HA!

Don't get either one of those. The 6600 is an old mid-range card, and the X1600 is a new mid-range card that's not powerful enough to fully utilize the new features it has. The best AGP card is the 7800GS, but I wouldn't spend that much on AGP ($300). ATI has the X800XL , and X850pro on clearance. They are both worlds better than what your friend has, and their really cheap right now ($119 for the X800XL free shipping 1year warranty, and $150 for the X850pro).

The 7800GS is THE BEST AGP graphics card available. It has newer technology when compared to the older ATi X850XT (ATi has SM 2.0 and the 7800GS has SM 3.0). However, at a high price, you might want to factor in the price/performance ratio, and the fact that AGP is basically a dying breed...

If price is an issue, consider the X800XL unless you are sure you can get an X850 Pro that can UNLOCK.

Those 2 are really the best bang for your buck, especially the X800XL.

nVidia has the 7600GS and the 6800GS which are OK, but not as good for the price. The Best is the 7800GS, or the X850XT PE

I'll second those recommendations for the X800XL refurb from ATI. It is light years ahead of the 9250 and all other cards that cost $100 more than it.

You might want to consider an X800GTO.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] ategory=48
If you read the reviews for the one with the transparent fan you will notice that some of them are coming with 16 pixel pipes enabeled which basically makes it an X800XL.

I have the Sapphire card with the black fan and was able to unlock it to 16 pipes with a bios flash.

I have heard that you might end up waiting quite a while if you order one of the refurbished cards from ATI. I don't know if it is true but you might want to consider that.

More info would be helpfull. There are alot of good cards at different price points. He might not be to concurned about gaming being he has such a old card to begin with. So really the best card for the dollar would geforce 6800 agp 256mb for 133.00 bucks. but how much is he willing to spend is the big issue.

Basically, he is concerned about gaming.

Money is a factor but do you think that p4 3.0 ghz is enough for a card like 6800 ? Or should he consider x800 card?


I know AGP is a dead end but it is what he has.

Could it be a good idea to change his MB and get a cheaper PCI-E card for the same price ?

So he could later upgrade his cpu ? Is there a lot of possibility on the same socket ? Some old dual core cpu, like pentium D series?

It might be better, though, to live as long as he can with what he has and upgrade to a PCI-e motherboard w/GPU.

On upgrading the CPU: What socket and what FSB?

~Ibrahim~

I was in love 8O with my x850xt pe until... Let's just say that I am starting over now (not due to the card but an unfortunate PSU incident).

This card was one of the best performers due to clock speed but not new features (like pixel shaders).

I like this card alot.

A 3GHz Pentium 4 isn't a bad CPU even if it is a few years old. The clock speeds haven't gotten much higher since then. Socket 478 Northwood or Prescott are still both respectable CPUs. Of course, neither of them will set any records.

I have a 2.8 Northwood C overclocked to 3.5GHz with an AGP Sapphire X800GTO unlocked to 16 pixel pipelines. It isn't fast by today's standards but it will play BF2 and CS:S on high (with BF2 I set the texture detail to medium because I don't have 2GB of RAM) with no AA or AF at 1280x960. I can actually run 1600x1200 in CS:S but I like my framerates to stay above 50 if I can.

The X800 and X850 series cards were very fast and they still are very fast. I think a few weeks ago I saw a benchmark, HL2 I think, with the X850XT PE in the 5th spot, it was putting out faster frames than two 7900GTXs. Very good card, one of ATI's better cards.

~Ibrahim~

Can you find that benchmark? That doesn't sound like it could be true.

I'm looking for it right now. I was amazed as well, that is why I remembered it. It was a GPU review, just can't remeber the damned card that they were reviewing!

~Ibrahim~

I'm looking and looking. I cannot find it. I've looked for any card that I would have wanted/needed a review for. I can't find it anymore, but I'll keep an eye out for it. Here is a similar benchmark:

THG Compairison

There the X850XT PE beats 7800GT SLi, 7800GT OC SLi, and 7800GTX SLi. Once you turn the res. up, though, it is left in the dust. I'm pretty sure the bench I was talking about earlier was probably at 1024x768.

Kind of interesting how a card two gen. back can beat a brand new card, but at a low. res.... And, as I have found out, most people game either at 1280X1024 or 1024x768, the res. where the X850XT PE shines. Odd how THG doesn't include 12x10...

~Ibrahim~

X850 looks like the best choice.


Thank you very much guys for helping me out!

Interesting.