Best Gaming Graphics Cards for the Money: AGP Interface
Best AGP Card for Under $100:
| Radeon HD 2600 PRO | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | RV630 |
| Process: | 65nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 128 |
| Texture Units: | 8 |
| ROPs: | 4 |
| Memory Bus: | 128-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 600 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 500 (1000 effective) |
| DirectX / Shader Model | DX 10 / SM 4.0 |
In this category we’re recommending the low-priced Radeon HD 2600 PRO. This card is almost as fast as the older Geforce 7600, but can now be found for less than $100 on the aging AGP bus. As such, it’s a good buy.
Best AGP Card for $100:
| Radeon HD 2600 XT | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | RV630 |
| Process: | 65nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 128 |
| Texture Units: | 8 |
| ROPs: | 4 |
| Memory Bus: | 128-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 800 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 700 (1400 effective) |
| DirectX / Shader Model | DX 10 / SM 4.0 |
The 2600 XT is relatively new to the AGP scene, but almost as cheap as its PCIe cousin. This is a decently fast DirectX 10 card available for AGP, and surprisingly offers a great deal of performance at the $100 price point. Be forewarned that it’s been reported that the official ATI drivers don’t work with the AGP version of this card, but the modified Omega drivers work fine.
Best AGP Card For $110 to $150: None
With AGP X1950 PRO and 7900 GS stock almost impossible to find, there are no longer any compelling AGP cards to purchase in this price segment. With no retail products available in this segment for the first time, this is perhaps the beginning of the end of AGP support.
Best AGP Card For $160:
| Radeon HD 3850 512MB | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | RV670 |
| Process: | 55nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 320 |
| Texture Units: | 16 |
| ROPs: | 16 |
| Memory Bus: | 256-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 670 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 833 (1666 effective) |
| DirectX / Shader Model | DX 10.1 / SM 4.0 |
Forever rumored and now finally available to purchase, the Radeon HD 3850 is, frankly, a curiously powerful card for the aging AGP bus. It’s a bit too powerful to be properly utilized on the single-core CPUs that are typically paired with this platform.
Regardless, this is the most powerful AGP card you can get. Perhaps you have an AGP gaming system you just can’t bear to part with, or you have an older system with both a dual-core CPU and AGP slot. Whatever the reason, you can’t get better than an AGP 3850, and if anyone ever releases a more powerful card in the future for the dying bus, we’ll be incredibly surprised.
As always, thanks very much for putting the time and effort in to bring us these recommendations. One thing I have noticed..the price. British consumers seem to be paying way over the odds for their graphics cards when on converts those dollars into pounds. Having said that, the level of performance you can get these days is astounding.
The G84s (and G86) sell cheap for a reason, read up on the problems at http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inqu [...] 4-g86-bad. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone unless they had money to burn, and didn't expect it to work after 9 months... Hardly a value proposition.
The G84s (and G86) sell cheap for a reason, read up on the problems at http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inqu [...] 4-g86-bad. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone unless they had money to burn, and didn't expect it to work after 9 months... Hardly a value proposition.
Bad link??
I like the Graphics Card Heirarchy Chart. The only thing I would like to also see is where sli and cf would be on the chart. That way I would be better able to tell if I should go with 1 good card or 2 sli/cf cards depending on price of course. If 2 sli/cf cards costs more then 1 card in the same preformance tier then I would of course choose 1 card and possible by another later on when I want to increase my performance.