What AGP card to upgrade to?

[zero2duo]

I have an old HP Pavilion 762c from 2001 with the following specs:

2.26GHz P4 Processor
2GB of DDR RAM
Nvidia MX420 64MB AGP video card

I upgraded hard drives, optical drives, and RAM, and now I want to upgrade the video card.

Since Nvidia no longer makes any more agp card, that leaves the more recent ATI cards. I have narrowed it down to the following:

Radeon 3850 512MB
Radeon 4650 1GB
Radeon 4670 1GB

There's so many different brands (HSI, XFX, SAPPHIRE, etc), not sure which one to get once I do pick one out of the three choices.

Basically I want the best AGP card that will let me play most of the recent games like Left for Dead. I saw a youtube video of a guy with a P4 system playing it with the 4650.

I assume the 4670 is the best out of the three since it's the most recent, but on Newegg, there's one from HSI and Powercolor and the reviews were not that great. I didn't find any info on any new agp cards coming out, so I guess the 4670 will be the last agp card.

Anyways, I could use some suggestions/opinions from everyone who has some expertise on the subject.

 

[IH8U]

Any of the 3 are a big upgrade over that old fossil MX420. Honestly I'd go with the XFX 4650. However please give some thought in building/purchasing a new PC with PCIX-16.

 

[cyberkuberiah]

here are your system specs : http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph07571&lc=en&dlc=&cc=us&lang=&product=83487

your computer , the HP Pavilion 762c has a 845chipset based mothboard which has Agp 4x only .

agp 4x is agp 2.0 , 1.5 Volts signaling and agp 8x , is agp 3.0 , 0.8 Volts signaling .
the thing is that agp 3.0 is generally backwards compatible with agp 4x , as i am running an agp 8x nvidia 6600 on agp 4x , 845 based intel motherboard with no problems . even 3850 and 3650 run in 4x mode .

warning : BUT , one buyer having gigabyte 4650 (native agp 8x ) has reviewed on newegg that the card is NOT agp 4x compatible . the manufacturer could very well leave that out . but some other manufacturer's card may very well be . i am gonna look into this and report my findings later .

one more thing : look at these charts : l4d is cpu reliant , look at these : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/agp-radeon-overclocking,2395-5.html

here they have a dual core athlon 64 x2 cpu which is better than the pentium 2.26 by miles . and since the motherboard name is not mentioned by hp , i doubt whether ull be able to overclock it .

 

[cyberkuberiah]

by the way , i got my nvidia 6600 agp from a friend , even i was looking to upgrade to 3850 then ultimately decided against it when i realized that my pentium 4 2.4 caused a ridiculous drop in frame rates when switching on the flashlight in half life 2 ! that was the moment i realized that a 3850 will give the same frame rates on a weak cpu ! besides , the 3850 needs a new psu too ! the return wasnt just worth it .

 

[cyberkuberiah]

looks like except gigabyte's card , every 4650's and 4670's are agp 4x compatible .
but imo 4670's at 109/124 dollars arent worth it , go for xfx or spphire 4650 . dont go for the 3850 , it will surely need a psu upgrade as well .

 

[nforce4max]

The best agp card I ever used was a 7800gs ($45) and I miss it even though I have other cards that would smoke it. The 3850 agp is a good card but pricey. Good luck if you get the 4650 agp.

 

[zero2duo]

here are your system specs : http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph07571&lc=en&dlc=&cc=us&lang=&product=83487

your computer , the HP Pavilion 762c has a 845chipset based mothboard which has Agp 4x only .

agp 4x is agp 2.0 , 1.5 Volts signaling and agp 8x , is agp 3.0 , 0.8 Volts signaling .
the thing is that agp 3.0 is generally backwards compatible with agp 4x , as i am running an agp 8x nvidia 6600 on agp 4x , 845 based intel motherboard with no problems . even 3850 and 3650 run in 4x mode .

warning : BUT , one buyer having gigabyte 4650 (native agp 8x ) has reviewed on newegg that the card is NOT agp 4x compatible . the manufacturer could very well leave that out . but some other manufacturer's card may very well be . i am gonna look into this and report my findings later .

one more thing : look at these charts : l4d is cpu reliant , look at these : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/agp-radeon-overclocking,2395-5.html

here they have a dual core athlon 64 x2 cpu which is better than the pentium 2.26 by miles . and since the motherboard name is not mentioned by hp , i doubt whether ull be able to overclock it .

The motherboard is an MS-6579 and from my research cannot be overclocked. I guess no matter what agp card I get, the cpu is gonna be too slow to keep up.

Alright, one more question...I forgot I had an Evga 7300GT
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130100) laying around, should I try to sell that and get the 4650, or just use it?

Or maybe I should listen to IH8U and build a new pc. The only reason I consider upgrading the video card is because Mafia 2 comes out in late January. The 1st one was awesome and this one looks to top that.

 

[cyberkuberiah]

as per the developer's website : mafia 2 is based upon a new engine , illusion . the system requirements arent released yet , people are only speculating . if it turns out to use multi cores well , you wont be able to gain much from an agp card . even bioshock had pentium 4 2.4 (my processor) as minimum .

the best would be to wait for it to come out and see performance on various processors of today from there you would be able to judge . in the meantime , save some money (so to say) and play a bit older games on your 7300gt ! of thats the game you like it would be the best to build the system when it comes out , like going for faster processor or faster graphics etc if budget is a constraint .

 

[zero2duo]

Alright, I will wait and see. I guess if the 7300 won't play the game, I can get and try the Radeon 4650 agp card. Or I will just build a new core quad system with a high end card like the Radeon 4879 pci-e.

 

[DonP]

I just got the XFX HD 4650 card for a PC-DL, running dual Xeon's at 16 x 166.

Benchmarks are 15500 in 3DMark2001, 3750 in 3DMark2006.

Are these good?

 

[capt_taco]

Honestly, any of those three cards ought to give you about the same experience with a 2.24 Ghz single core and an AGP 4x slot. That card is going to be the most capable component of the system -- if the 4x slot doesn't bottleneck it, the CPU will. So I would just go with whichever is cheapest.

I've got a similar system with a 4650 in it (except that it's a 3.0 Ghz CPU and an 8x AGP slot) and have been very happy with the results. It didn't make the machine anywhere near as good as my main system, but it'll probably give it life for a couple more years.

 

[zero2duo]

Any of the 3 are a big upgrade over that old fossil MX420. Honestly I'd go with the XFX 4650. However please give some thought in building/purchasing a new PC with PCIX-16.

I been using the 7300GT for a while now, and it's been great. I was able to play COD:WF2 and L4D fine. I cashed in on some Frys deals (Antec 300 case for $15, i7 920 cpu and MSI mobo for $300) and awaiting the 6GB Corsair RAM from Tigerdirect which will cost around $88 after rebates and cashback and an XFX 4650 pcie version. This new system is gonna be awesome. Total cost of parts, about $500.