Yes, I agree.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-hd-3800,1726-18.html

The question is: does OP has high-quality 350W...If not + his PSU is old - well, shit happens.

EDIT: Don't belive what they write on the box :-)
I used Nvidia 9600GT (that has the same TDP as 3850) on 350W Antec with no problem at all.

Very true but 95W max draw is nothing to sneeze at. I have a 350W supply with a card that has a 75W max draw. Compare that to a new Geforce 520 who's max draw is a mere 29W.

AGP 7950's are relatively scarce, as neither the 7900 nor 7950 was designed for AGP. Both were PCI-Express designs, but some makers (notably XFX) came out with AGP versions.

If you can't find a 7900 or 7950 in AGP, you may be able to find a 7800. The 7800 GS AGP was a pure AGP design (though there are also PCI-e 7800's), very low power and trouble-free. It's widely considered the "last true AGP" card, as others all use some kind of AGP to PCI-e bridge on-card.

I have one. It still runs fine. (I tried running TW2 on it, just to see what a fiasco that would be. It was a slideshow.) But I would not be throwing $90 or so after a secondhand one. I would put that money toward getting a new computer.

Just checked eBay; there are 7 7800 GS's and 9 7950 GT's in AGP offered. The only ones that are anything like reasonably priced are some of the 7800's. The 7950 GT's are all ridiculously overpriced.

Good point. 95W is a hefty draw on an old-style power supply that doesn't necessarily have a lot of juice at +12V. That's 6 amps you may not have to spare. And it has to go through an auxiliary connector.

Especially with a Pentium 4 (they called them "PresHOT" for a reason), I wouldn't go with less than a solid, new 350W or more power supply even with a 3850 AGP. The 7950 AGP draws a little less power. The 7800 AGP was a deliberately low-power design. It's been run successfully on power supplies as low as 200W, though I wouldn't recommend doing so.

With that processor and a gig of...probably DDR 400, there is no point in upgrading that rig. The most powerful AGP card out is the AMD (was ATi) HD4670, and your processor/RAM config is just going to bottleneck it; meaning that it can't keep up with the video card. This means that while, yea, you'll have a pretty good video card, it can't show it's true power because it has to wait for everything else to constantly catch up.

Right now is a really, really good time to drop $300 or so on a new mobo/processor/RAM, due to RAM being bottom-line cheap. I'd just save some money and do a cheap AM3 build and be a lot happier with a huge performance jump over the P4.

$50 to $100 into a new video card for this system is $50 to $100 wasted; no question.

I have an nVidia 7600 with 256 megs, but I much rather preferred my ATI Radeon X800 Pro card, with the same amount. Presumably you aren't planning on playing new games? Because even with the X800 Pro I can't play most; I'm planning on saving to build a whole new rig once I'm done with college.

Oh, forgot to mention about the drivers: any newer AGP card you get will still require new drivers, due to them not being natural AGP cards. The new AGP cards all have PCI-E to AGP bridge chips that your drivers won't recognize.

You should ALWAYS update your drivers. With video cards, it's not "oh, it works now." There are always issues to be resolved with driver updates.

I would suggest you better start saving some money and build a whole new rig for about $500 since it isn't worth spending $80-$100 on that old PC. Thats what I personally did a couple of months ago, though my rig was more expensive.
Anyway, a 6600gt AGP 512mb is for around $80 in ebay. It's your call.

I think we permanently scared philD away. Sorry Phil. We didn't mean to burst your bubble. Such is life in the tech world.

PhilD? PhilD? Damn, I think you're right. It's hard enough trying to build a new system never mind sorting your antiquated rig out with some better parts. The fact that a lot of pre-built systems are designed so as to ensure they're almost impossible to upgrade doesn't help matters either.

Yeah, I did. You've got to keep things balanced. You don't want to wind up with the Tom Cruise of computers. RAM upgrades are easy when you know what you're buying and I already took care of that for him.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-GeForce-NX6600GT-128MB-GDDR3-AGP-DVI-I-VGA-S-Video-Graphics-Card-6600GT-PC-/200679379316?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2eb96c5174

Here's one for $30. I remember when I was about to order this card, but I got a 6800GS instead. So glad I did.

Oh, that was in 2005.

Nah, you didn't scare me away. I just decided to quit playing computers games and get some sleep for a change, heh.


yeah, If I do get a new card I'll probably snag some more ram too (If I can find it lol)


I'm only really interested in playing older games right now. I have a backlog of games on gog that run great on my
current system that'll take pretty much the rest of my life to work my way through :)

There are just a few games that I'd like to play that are just outside what my comp can handle so I thought I'd check to
see what was what and get some suggestions for a new card. I really just wanted a somewhat faster card w/256mb memory.



Anyway, thanks for all the help guys. I appreciate it. I think I got the info I needed. Now I just need to decide if
having shadows in Helldorado is worth it all. ;)

NO! STAY AWAY FROM RADEON 3XXX AGP EDITION GPUs!

Had to scream out loud. The cards are not supported by AMD, and the unofficial drivers are hit or miss. BSODs will be the least of your problems.