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After much thought, I've come to the conclusion that, even though I would love to, I cannot upgrade my pc later this year. Simply not in the budget since I'm going to be paying back some school loans. So, I need to keep this rig going as long as I can. I can run GRAW 2, which is encouraging; however, I could run everything better with another gig of RAM and a new AGP graphics card.

Right now I'm running ATI 9500 PRO 128 RAM. If any of you have an AGP card for sale that is better than what I have, I would be interested. Something more modern would be nice. PM me.

nothign any better then that that I can give up
But 130$ gets you this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814195031

Thats about as good as AGP cards get

unfortunately that was out of stock, Veg.

Grif,
I ran into this trouble more than a year ago. I found that AGP cards were not only not kept current, they were more expensive than their non-agp brethren. Without going to PCI-e, you are going to be in a tight position, GPU-wise. At that time, I bought Steel's old X800. I'd give it to you, except that it is keeping my old AGP system running until it dies. YOU try convincing Josi that she should give up her PC. ;-)

515 mb agp cards on newwgg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... name=512MB

microcenter has some to

http://microcenter.com/search_results_e ... submit.y=0


Defentlay some nice ones for under 200$ range

yep, well if anyone here does have one for sale, let me know. Otherwise, I'll stick with what I have until I have no choice.

good finds veg. Grif, there are definitely some in a very reasonable price range that would give you a great bump. If you're not going to do a full overhaul of your system, one of those 512mb cards would certainly help extend the life.

Grif,
it would help if you told us your budget. i am sure it is as cheap as possible...

i might have some stuff i can come across to help you out...

also, what do you have right now...

around a hundred or less and I listed my current GPU above: ATI 9500 Pro 128MB

I have to confess that I've been out of the market for so long that I'm not entirely sure what is and what is not a good GPU for my purposes and budget. The first one that Veg linked on NewEgg got bad reviews; apparently, it's prone to burn out. What's the difference between a 512MB 128 bit and a 512MB 256 bit? hmm. Is there a difference between ATI and nVidia in that regard? Either based on the links Veg provided or on your prior knowledge, if anyone could make a suggestion as to which card(s) I should pursue, I would appreciate it.

not just GPU Grif - your entire system. what do you have now?

AMD 64 3000
MSI Mobo
1 gig of Ram
Soundblaster Live Soundcard
Seatronics 550(?) Watt PSU
2 hard drives
1 CD ROM
1 DVD ROM
ATI 9500 Pro 128MB

your big bottleneck id the graphics card. you should not really need 2GB of RAM... will see what i can find.

What do you think of this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102073

Although I'm not very familiar with the ATI cards anymore, or how that card would compare to an NVidia card, that price looks pretty good. It says Limited Time offer, so you better grab it while it's still at that price. I imagine if that's a decent card, it will sell fast.

um hell at that price I may buy one.. basically same one I liked using ati chip just a different card maker. Also on new egg there are 2 more under that brand I saw . If you want to stay cheep thats the one if you want to spend a little more and get direct x 10 (only if you plan on vista is that usefull) then there are 2 others I saw one at 86 one at 116

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102718
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102709

I know the x1600 chip but not the chip on those I just posted so not sure if they are worth the cash.

So if you are XP and I think you are order that one you posted if you plan or are vista the other 2 are worth a look.

Veg,
Those cards support dx10 (which is vista only), but they are also a generation newer, so they'd probably perform better than the previous generation in XP anyway. For the same price, I'd get the newer gen card. However, I'm not sure how they compare to similarly priced nvidia cards, so I'm not exactly in a position to recommend.

But don't let DX10/Vista support put you off, they obviously work just fine in XP.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130100 This one is only twenty bucks but the reviews make no mention of heat problems that the 1650 pro owners complained about.

I found this 7300 GT but it does not have GDDR2 memory, it has DDR2. What's the difference? This one has a 25 dollar rebate:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... etailspecs


I'm pretty sure I'll go with the 7300 GT at this point. But not sure about this memory difference- GDDR2 or DDR2? 25 bucks? hmm.

7300 is not a gamer card by any means, don't get it

and yes I know those direct x 10 cards are newer but in the end how much of a improvment do they give vs cash which I am sure cash is a big thing here. The 20$ more one may be worth the extra 20$ but is it worth that is what I was trying to get at.

I found this link at Tom's Hardware. It has some info on the 3 Best AGP Cards for less than $100. Looks like the ATI 1650 PRO GDDR3 and NVidia 7600GT (Less than $130) are the best bang for the buck.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/05/ ... page5.html

If was going to buy one of those 3 cards, it would be the 7600GT hands down.

Newegg has a 7600GT for $128: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130099