Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Components > Graphics Cards > The Best Gaming Graphics Cards For The Money: October 2007

AGP Interface

6:26 AM - October 1, 2007 by Don Woligroski

Best AGP Card For Under $100: Tie

Radeon X1650 PRO (GDDR3)
Codename:	R530
Process:	80 and 90nm
Pixel Shaders:	12
Vertex Shaders:	5
Texture Units:	4
ROPs:	4
Memory Bus:	128 bit
Core Speed MHz:	600
Memory Speed MHz:	700 (1400 effective)
DirectX / Shader Model	DX 9.0c / SM 3.0

The X1650 PRO is a re-dressed X1600 XT with slightly higher clock speeds. Its very high-speed memory for this card category and efficient shaders help the X1650 PRO compare well to the 12-pipeline 7600 GS, beating it by a small margin in most benchmarks.

Just make sure you get the fast GDDR3 version, instead of the slower DDR2-equipped card!

GeForce 7600 GS
Codename:	G73
Process:	90nm
Pixel Shaders:	12
Vertex Shaders:	5
Texture Units:	12
ROPs:	8
Memory Bus:	128 bit
Core Speed MHz:	400
Memory Speed MHz:	400 (800 effective)
DirectX / Shader Model	DX 9.0c / SM 3.0

With identical features compared to its faster 7600 GT brethren, the 7600 GS lacks only the core and memory clock speeds-however, the GT's clock speeds are so high that the GS pales in comparison. Nevertheless, the 7600 GS is a good performer in this AGP segment.

Best AGP Card For ~$130: None

With the prices of the AGP 7600 GT and X1650 PRO reaching the $150 level, it's impossible to recommend these cards now that the much-stronger X1950 PRO for AGP can be found for as little as $160 online.