old rig AGPx4 upgrade help!

[baldinie]

ok, heres the situation. my old rig is getting long in the tooth, and with the collapse of the sterling my new rig that i wanted has gone from £650 to £800, a lil price.

So my spec is (and most of you probably wont remember these parts)

K7S5A - with AGP x4
got a 2nd hand Athlon XP 2400 (1.93Ghz) max this mobo can take.
1Gb of ram PC2100 (266mhz)
and currently a GeForce4 Ti 4200 128Mb

Now I'm looking to upgrade just the graphics, to give my PC a little extra life till early next year when hopefully I'll have a new job, and some cash and get my new gaming Rig with the new i7 or deneb cores.

I can get a x1950pro for £32 or an HD3650 for £40 (both 512mb). I've also seen that there is still an AGP 3850 (£76) but i only have a 480W PSU, and I'm guessing the 3850 would be bottle necked too much by my x4 slot and CPU.

Any advice on the 2 other cards, and would i get a big bonus from the 3850?

Thank you in advance

 

[baldinie]

ok i tried to edit the message but i cant.

EDIT its an x1650pro not 1950pro that i can get.

also there is a 256mb 6200 but am guessin the ATi options would be much better than this.

 

[boulard83]

go for the 3850. good for the price.

but whit your cpu, a 3650 would do it. 3850 overkilling it !

 

[baldinie]

wouldn't it just be too bottle necked on an AGP 4 with an athlon XP 2400 cpu? and would a 480W psu be enough for it?

 

[boulard83]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102762

3650 but in US price.

 

[boulard83]

sry my edit was to late

 

[baldinie]

am guessin the 3650 would be noticeably better than the x1650pro? (the 3850 is too limited by my set up and a bit pricey for a "cheap" upgrade)

 

[ajcroteau]

Hmm.... the HD3650 i think would be the optimal choice. I was gonna say upgrading the RAM would help breath new life but after looking into the specs of the MB, K7S5A, 1GB is the max.

That being said, i would say save your cash on the new video card and save up for a dual core system. I think a new video card with that system is a waste of money, you may want to go to a dual core or quad core system soon and that HD3650 will just be tossed with the rest of the current system.

AJ

 

[evongugg]

With that CPU, the 2600 XT is the best you'd want to get. Anything more will be very bottlenecked by the platform.
480W is plenty.

 

[baldinie]

but £35 for 3-4 months of playable gaming isn't that bad. i dont think. and then when the i7's and and X58's and ddr3 isn't stupidly over priced, or if the deneb is good enough to compete i'll build the new rig.

 

[baldinie]

the only cards i can get (new) are the x1650 pro or the HD 3650 (and 3850).

 

[boulard83]

hd3650 good choice

 

[KyleSTL]

The ideal would be to wait and build a new system when you have the means, but your best option is the HD 3650. I'd say go for it. I noticed a huge difference when I went from a Geforce 5200 to my current 7600GS OC. Don't expect miricles, though, I run everything at 1024x768 (native) and have to turn down quite a bit of detail settings to make some games playable (NFS: PS is at lowest settings, NFS:C at medium). The 3650 is definitely more powerful, but it's not a significant margin.

 

[baldinie]

whats NFS? PS and C? and I'll only be playing on a 17" CRT, goin to upgrade to a 22-24" LCD with the new gaming rig. I'm reluctant to build a new system just yet with the i7's brand new and over priced, and AMD's new cpu coming out in just over a month I'm wanting to wait. So i'm just trying to get my current rig able to run a bit better in the mean time.

so we all agreed, on my system, with my CPU and agp x4 the 3650 is best.

What if i got a new mobo with 8x AGP and able to overclock the CPU to a 333fsb (up from the current 266)? would that make much difference (only £30) and would it be good to get the new mobo and the 3850, or would the 3850 still be too bottlenecked by the CPU?

 

[GhislainG]

Before ordering a new card, I would make sure that it's compatible with that K7S5A motherboard.

 

[baldinie]

great now the 3650 is out of stock! and its £50 everywhere else!! grr, damn internet shops!

so looks like its the x1650pro!

 

[frozenlead]

the x1650 will bottleneck your system anyway, the 3650 would have been a waste.

 

[baldinie]

would the x1650pro give me noticable improvements over my current GF4 Ti4200? it does have 4 times the memory at least. Am not expecting to play CoD 4 or crysis. just games like prey and Galactic Civ 2 smoothly. for the next few months.

 

[boulard83]

or Nvidia,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130417
haha 25$

well i cant really find something nice whit AGP nvidia ...

 

[frozenlead]

The memory isn't important here - memory factors into systems with large screens at ridiculous resolutions. Your CPU won't be able to keep up at 1280x1024. You'll see an improvement, but it won't be inordinately pronounced. I highly recommend you push your CPU to its limit on OC in order to get the most out of your card.

EDIT: don't get the fx5700. just...don't.

 

[baldinie]

i'd need a new bios to oc on my current mobo. max cpu is 266 which its running at. and i dunno where to get a new oc bios from for the k7s5a.

and boulard, am not in the US, cant get nice cheap AGP cards here. or anything cheap for that matter.

 

[boulard83]

thats what i told .. cant really find something good with Nvidia AGP

 

[magicbullet]

With that CPU, the 2600 XT is the best you'd want to get. Anything more will be very bottlenecked by the platform.
480W is plenty.

^+ quagillion

exactly what i was going to say. I used to have xp2500+ and anything more than 2600XT is overkill. I had 7800gs, it was overkill too. 1650xt or 2600xt would do, anything higher than that, your cpu would lagging the videocard.

 

[baldinie]

ok i cant find any 2600 XT, what bout a HD2600 pro? around £50 (only £15 more than the x1650 pro)

 

[magicbullet]

pro is excellent.