I'm clueless - New AGP card

Hi everyone,

With help from yourselves I've confirmed that my graphics card is cooked :dead:

The thing is I don't know where to start in terms of picking a replacement. I only wat to spend around £100 to £130 to keep me going until I replace my pc is 12 to 18 months but its all getting a bit confusing.

The two AGP(8x) cards I've been recommended are the ATI X800 GTO and The Geforce 6600GT. The former I can't seem to find anywhere and the latter seems to have a zillion different makes/variations.

Can anyone give me a starter for 10?

What are the specs on your pc and are you a gamer?

Hi Rik,

I'm running an AMD Athlon 2400+, on an Asus A7V8X motherboard with 1 gig of ram and 120 gig hard drive.

I do play games and wouldn't mind a bit of a performance hike from my Geforce TI4600 (I assume that probably wouldn't be hard?!) but I also use it for a lot of lifestyle type things : Digital photographs, web surfing, home movies, etc.

To be honest if it hadn't blown I'd probably just have kept going with my old one for another year before replacing/significantly upgrading my pc. As I have to replace it I thought I might as well get a bit of a performance boost if I can.

Thanks in advance!

Well i use an ati radeon 9550 an i recon its a very good card for its price.

You can see my system specs if you click on my profile. I play a few games on my pc like doom3 and it works really well.
I only paid £36 for my 9550 brand new from overclockers.com some time back and i have to say that i believe i got very good value for money with it.

Cheers for the recommendation, Rik.

I'll check it out.

The 9550 is a good card but it will be more like a side-step than an upgrade compared to a GF4 Ti4600. It has a few more features, but is still a dx7-8.1 generation card.

An X800GTO or 6600GT will be a step upwards in performance, as well as better support for directx 9.0 features. Both these cards though will require you to have a good power supply as they will draw significantly more juice than your old Ti4600... or the above 9550.

Or you can try a 9600XT card. It has to be better than a 9550, but like Sharkfood said, it won't be much faster than a GF4Ti4600. The good thing, is that a 9600XT is a real DX9.0b card.

the 7800gs is the highest end AGP graphics card.
since AGP is on its way out, it would be best to max out. You need a beefy PSU though.

Hello rlwalshy!
I Agree that 7800GS is the best card for AGP, tough you are on a budget, and that card is around 300 USD, (not sure about diff currency), I believe that 9600XT is a good option if you don't want to upgrade also your PSU and you don't mind playing some games at medium settings, for everything else it works fine, I used to have this card and is pretty good (way much better than a 9550). right now i don't have time to check but last time 9600XT was around 99 USD. Good Luck with your upgrade!

My suggestion would be that if you can find a PNY Verto dealer, they have a version of the GForce 7600 GS (512meg DDR Memory) and it's an 8xAGP. I just purchased the card as an upgrade due to the fact that I don't want to upgrade to a SLI board for a few more months until Vista hits the market. I have to admit that for a $150 card, it well exceeds my expectations. I can run HL2, Company of Heroes and Oblivion pretty much maxed out with little degredation or frame loss.

Wow! Thanks all for your replies everyone. All very helpful!

I think rather than a simple sidestep I'd quite like to get a bit of a performance hike without breaking the bank (I leave that to my 7 months old - bless him!!)

Sharkfood, you mentioned about being aware of the power needs of some of the above mentioned GPU's - what should I be looking for in terms of power outputs for my PSU? I'm running an Athlon 2400+ with a 360w PSU.

Cheers in advance.

It really depends on what you're getting to determine the power supply you need, rather than the power supply that is decent. Do you know what you have right now?

Sorry cfitzarl,

I'm not too sure what you're asking me. My spec sheet I received when I bought my PC says says it is a 360 w supply. Do I need any more info?

Cheers in advance.

I would advise to up the PSU to at least one that's rated in the 450-500 watt range. The majority of the new graphics cards all require to be connected to your power supply. The graphics card itself is the biggest power hog in the pc. As the card gets taxed due to intensive applications in some games, a low power supply can be noted for slow down, choppiness or even poor overall performance.
If you plan on upgrading to Vista when it's dumped, you'll need at least a half of gig of memory, and a better power supply.
Most people dump a lot of money in their computer when they either build or upgrade, but they neglect the power supply.

Oh dear

Thanks for all your replies everyone.

Unfortunately everything has taken a turn for the worst and now my PC won't boot at all.

It does nothing! Not a squeak! In fact if I didn't know any better I'd think it wasn't plugged in.

I really hope it's a PSU problem and I haven't fried its internals!

any leds on? fans? or nothing at all. If you are going to buy a PSU anyways then make sure you buy a worthy one, Antec and Thermaltake are the ones that I would recommend but don't look only at the watts spec, make sure you got at least 18A on the 12 V rail, specially if the video card upgrade is gonna be a power hungry one. I'm no expert at PSU's but I've learned a lot recently about this. I'll suggest this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103937

But let's see what the experts would recommend to you.

Uhm, dual 7900GTXs and dual X1950XTXs cant even do that... no WAY a 7600GS AGP can. Unless you're talking about like 15 FPS

this type of activity is not tolerated on techspot, and in fact, is illegal in many jurisdictions. Many of our members are minors. (advertising online casinos)

Edit: It`s ok Tedster, he won`t be seen around here no more. Regards Howard

I recently had a similar problem and it turned out my PSU was shot.... replace the PSU.

That SmartPower linked by rmdl51 is a good PSU. Solid power, good amperage. And the sale at NewEgg makes it a steal if you're able to get it here (live in the USA).

Now that your system doesn't power up, you should try to determine the real source of failure first. I'd start by removing all devices from the motherboard except video. Pull all the HD cables, pull the power from the HD's/CD, any expansion cards, etc.etc. See if you can get it to POST/BIOS with just video, cpu & memory hooked and powered.

If it's still dead as a doornail there, inspect all your connections. Make sure the motherboard isn't shorted somewhere and secure in the case. Check power connections and voltage switch on the back of the PSU. It could indeed be a smoked PSU at that stage.

Good luck