From AGP to PCI

[Christos1332]

Hi all.

I currently have this system:
Intel P4 3GhZ
2GB DDR Ram
160GB Hard Drive
and AGP ATI HD 2400 Pro 512 MB.
Windows XP

I use this machine for gaming but I dont play the latest games at the moment.(CoD 4, Crysis, Fallout 3 etc ect) But I would like to make a small upgrade to my PC in order to have better visual experience to my current games (CFS3 FS9 CoD 2 SH4) and move on to next generation games.

My guess is that the only bad thing in my system is the video card. But I got AGP. Now I have looked this through and I have found some GeForce video cards for AGP. These are the 7600 and 7800 series. I can spend about 100 euros to buy one of this..the question is..are these two types of video cards better than my current card? And is it worth it anyway?

But I have another option. To find a motherboard that supports my RAM and my CPU but has a PCI slot. I can spend about 150 euros for this. (motherboard+PCI video card) But maybe I will need to change my PSU. My guess is that PCI cards are cheaper now. Am I right?
So what do you guys think?
Keep my current video card? Change it with a 7600 or 7800 card? Or change my motherboard and just buy a decent PCI card?

 

[leo2kp]

HD3850 can be found in AGP. Good card.

 

[Shadow703793]

Imo, save the money and do a new built (re use HDD, etc). You are dropping money on a dead platform.

 

[zigonneux]

Guys are right. Use the $$$ for a new system.

But if you still want to buy a new video card, go for the 7800. It's better than the 2400.

I change my AGP ATI video card (X800XT) for a brand new 7800GS and I'm really happy with it. The reason to change the video card was bad driver support for the AGP bus from ATI. I can play all new games with an Athlon 3000+ on NForce 2 mobo. Really happy.

Oh and by the way forget about a PCI video card. It's really useless.

Good luck.

 

[Nik_I]

i'd highly suggest that you invest in a new computer. the pentium 4 platform is completely dead and all the upgrades you can get for it are very overpriced. but if you really need to stick with it, get either a radeon 2600XT or a 3850.