Is this card(2600 pro) worth keeping?

[EvilHomerINC]

Hello everyone,

This is my first 'contribution' to the forums here at Tom's but I read them daily and am glad to have learned very much from them. I am hoping you guys can help me decide if I should keep or return this video card. It was purchased at 5:30 a.m. on black Friday from Best Buy after not sleeping and I had a couple other stops to make and wasn't sure, so I bought it not knowing what kind of upgrade it would provide me, if any...

The new card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129092

The old card:

http://www.fticomputer.com/scripts/details.asp?PRDCODE=VCAT-100437510&REFID=FR

I have an older P4 2.22 ghz with 1 gig DDR ram. I understand this is not a blazing fast system by any means. I am only using a 19" lcd, so the maximum resolution I will play at is 1280x1024. Half Life 2: Orange Box(a new purchase today as well! ) and Doom 3 are about the most demanding games I intend to play in the near future. Original Half Life 2 works acceptably for me on the system as it is currently configured. I am just wondering if this card will be any better than what I have or if I should return it. Thanks in advance!

Dave

 

[yipsl]

Tom's VGA charts has about a 10 fps difference in Doom 3 between an X1600XT and an X2600XT:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=736&model2=858&chart=287

Your cards are probably in a similar relation. Is it worth keeping the new card? Anything faster would be CPU limited and the X2600Pro has some multimedia features you might use if you turn the older PC into a dedicated HTPC one of these days.

Overall, it's not that great an upgrade just for games, but if multimedia works for you, then go for it.

 

[EvilHomerINC]

The thing i was wondering about is that the card in the charts has ddr4, and this cheapo has ddr2. Will that make it much slower, considering the bandwidth may be limited by the agp bus anyway? I was considering using the older pc as a HTPC though, and that was one of the draws of the 2600. It was on sale for $100, and the newegg price is $127; I forgot to mention that at the outset