X1550 vs 9800 Pro, Some AGP help please

[Stretch32]

I just grabbed a cheap X1550 256mb AGP card and thought I'd install it in an older system running a P4 2.6Ghz processor and Windows XP with 1 gig of RAM. The card in there now is a Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb card I purchased about 4 or 5 years ago. After looking around a bit it seems the 9800 Pro might be the faster card but I've been told that just about any newer (1 to 2 years old) card should outrun it because its newer technology. Is this true or should I just keep the 9800 Pro in?

The X1550 has twice the RAM and its DDR2 so I thought it would be faster. It, however, has fewer pipelines according to gpureview.com. I honestly am not sure how to read these comparison charts or what to look for but it seems the X1550 has about half of everything (except RAM) compared to the 9800 Pro. I can't really seem to find a head to head performance comparison to base a conclusion on though.

Any thoughts on this would be great. I just wanted to get a little faster performance and get shaders without having to do anything (PSU, cooling, etc) to the PC. It's going away in a few months so I just needed a cheap temporary upgrade. I don't play 3d intensive games only older flight sims so I just wanted an FPS boost and better looking graphics. Thanks in advance for any help.

Stretch

 

[megamanx00]

Well it depends on what you're going to run. The X1550 isn't exactly on my list of reviews I've cared to read over the past. The technology in that card was low end 2-3 years ago so I'm not sure it would be much of an improvement. If that card as a 64-bit memory interface then you'll have lower memory bandwidth than the 9800, even if the RAM is clocked faster. You might add shader model 3.0 support and some games will like the extra RAM, but that's about all the improvement you would get.