Recommendation for a *reliable* AGP card for dual monitor

[godlyatheist]

So my dad suddenly got the urge to get a dual monitor setup on his computer. It's an old HP I give to him. I've been looking at AGP cards and it seems they are plagued by driver/low quality issues(mostly ATI HD 2k/3k that are getting really bad reviews). Is there one that you have used with no problem? Budget is $40-60. The card doesn't need to game or anything, just need dual monitor support with no headache.

Spec:
P4 3.2 HT Northwood (S478)
Rebadged Asus mobo
2x 512mb DDR 2700
Radeon 9200 SE w/ TV tuner - only 1 VGA output
300W stock PSU - can be replaced with my OCZ GamerXstream 600W if needed
Win XP Home

He doesn't want to get a new computer yet, and it would be too costly to replace the platform to utilize my spare Geforce 6800 GS PCI-E

 

[diatribe]

Another option would be adding a PCI video card to use along with the AGP.

 

[nforce4max]

If you got a paypal and eBay account you can get a cheap 6800gt agp or 7800gs agp on the cheap. You might be able to get a cheap 6600gt agp as well. Those cards can support dual monitors. You can try the x850xt if you want ati on up to the 4650 agp.

 

[benski]

I put an HD 4650 in an old AGP machine that I gave to my mom about a year ago and it's perfectly stable in XP, but probably a little out of your budget. Before that it had an old radeon 9800 xt in it that worked flawlessly for like 5 years, you can probably find one on ebay for less than 30 bucks. Just make sure you get the right drivers and do a clean install if you get an ATI card.

 

[nforce4max]

Well any way interesting avatar, yugioh fan? Change of Heart rather dark.

The 9800xt might be a option but those can sometimes be overpriced being close to %30 or more. There are a lot of cards on the second hand market that you can chose from. There are some DX10 era agp cards that you can get for more modern driver support and win7 compatibility.

 

[benski]

I'll send you mine for 10 bucks plus shipping

 

[godlyatheist]

Thanks for all the suggestions. It seems the 6800gt agp is relatively cheap, only $30-40. Do you guys think it's worth it to pay more for an ati 4650 to get GPU acceleration for HD and Flash?

 

[benski]

If he watches HD video's on HULU or Youtube it might be worth it, but a word of warning: I picked the 4650 in my moms PC for that reason only to find out that ATI's drivers at the time didn't properly enable h.264 decoding in flash so it ended up being a waste. The issue may be fixed now though with flash 10.2 and newer drivers.