AGP video card under $100?

[Shuemue]

Friend of mine needs to replace an AGP card in an older machine, it's used as a media centre and for light gaming. AGP 8x, the board is an ancient asus 7v8x-x

Any suggestions? I'm thinking something like a Sapphire 2600

[Fallso]

Under £50 all I could find was the Sapphire 2400 PRO http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?SAP-HD24PA

But for £55 he/she could get http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?SAP-26P5A

[Isiolia]

2600 should be decent for buying new.

[Shuemue]

Fallso: They're in Florida, newegg is a GO GO GO!

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161032

I'm thinking any 512mb card for $70 has gotta be worth a look

[Cephius]

Fallso: They're in Florida, newegg is a GO GO GO!

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161032

I'm thinking any 512mb card for $70 has gotta be worth a look

It's mediocre, clock speed is rather low even for an AGP card and its a huge card. Then again, you're not going to find much better. Just make sure he doesn't have something in an adjacent slot that that card would cover up.

[Shuemue]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102709

Better?

[Isiolia]

I'd be hesitant to get something quite that huge for a media center PC. Why not look for a used GF6800 or something at that point? It'd at least fit in a single slot.

[Shuemue]

Okay he just said he might be buying a new HDTV too, so should he bump it to something like this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161208

[Shuemue]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121260

This.

[Fallso]

Fallso: They're in Florida, newegg is a GO GO GO!

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161032

I'm thinking any 512mb card for $70 has gotta be worth a look

They probably won't be buying it off of newegg so just for the use of viewing the specs novatech is more than good enough!

[Isiolia]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121260

This.

I would consider the rest of the cooling in the system before using a passively cooled card + gaming. Friend of mine has one (not that model, older ATi) and has had nothing but trouble due to the thing overheating, and that's in a full tower case.


The downside with the 2600XT, as the comments say, is that ATi doesn't support them on AGP, so you can't use official drivers. So if the person isn't especially savvy, that might be a pain down the line.

[Shuemue]

He doesn't do a lot of gaming, it'll mostly be media, and he's software smart, pretty good programmer and so on, just doesn't keep up with hardware so much. I'll link him this thread and he can make a decision based on these opinions.

I'm inclined to tell him to just build a new budget machine tbh.

[Isiolia]

Might be prudent, the system I put in the other thread has been working very well for a media machine. I assume he has a case and drives that'd work, which is all I reused.

[Shuemue]

I've also suggested he grab an old Xbox and mod that to use as a media device, I'm rather partial to XBox Media Centre and streaming files across my LAN.

[Isiolia]

If he's running a media center capable OS on another machine, a 360 has the capability to be a media center extender already. PS3 can also play a good number of filetypes.

The thing I'd question with a regular XBox is the same reason I wound up upgrading my HTPC from the ol' P4 2Ghz...HD content requires specialized or beefy hardware. The 733Mhz Celeron in the XBox isn't going to play HD MKV files too well. So it might depend on what files he wants to throw at it.
As fun a project as that might be, there's something to be said for the convenience of a full-function PC for watching anything the internet can throw at you.

[Izzy]

Friend of mine needs to replace an AGP card in an older machine, it's used as a media centre and for light gaming. AGP 8x, the board is an ancient asus 7v8x-x

Any suggestions? I'm thinking something like a Sapphire 2600

I have an X1350 if he wants to buy it Q_Q. It's AGP.