Best AGP 2x card or new PCI DX 11?

I have an old dual Slot 1 server board, a Tyan Tiger 100 which is about 13+ years old now... (Dual PIII 500mhz @ 560mhz, 896mb Ram, 4 HDD's, Win XP SP3, USB 2.0, sound, NIC, & SATA cards, DVD-ROMs & CD-Burner) I keep it around because I like it, its reliably performing a service for me, and I am saving the case for a future build years down the road. The AGP slot is limited to 2 modes, AGP 1x, and 2x. I currently have a Ge-force 4 MX 420 running in AGP 2x mode. I would realy like to give this thing some more power, but most AGP cards dont support AGP 2x mode, and the few that do are DX 9 cards, no better...

The question is, Should I go with what appears to be the best AGP card that will work, or just say screw it, and shove in a new DX11 PCI card? If my memory serves me right, AGP 2x is 66mhz*2, which is 133mhz, which is also the exact same speed of the PCI bus... Getting a new dx11 card would also allow flash to use hardware acceleration.

Basically, is there any advantage to sticking with the AGP slot that may be worth considering?

I thought the PCI bus ran at 33MHz? That's what it runs at on my motherboard anyway.

AGP was created due to PCI being to slow for "serious" video cards. Your best bet would probably be to stick with AGP 2x unless i'm mistaken. I think if you put an AGP 8x card into a 2x slot, it should just default to 2x... i may be mistaken. That's how PCIe works anyway

CompuTamer said:

I thought the PCI bus ran at 33MHz? That's what it runs at on my motherboard anyway.

AGP was created due to PCI being to slow for "serious" video cards. Your best bet would probably be to stick with AGP 2x unless i'm mistaken. I think if you put an AGP 8x card into a 2x slot, it should just default to 2x... i may be mistaken. That's how PCIe works anyway

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I looked it up, and aparently PCI bus speeds are 33-66 mhz, usualy depending on your cpu/memory bus speeds. Mine is running overclocked at 112mhz, so its probably around the high-end at 66mhz... And AGP 2x is also 66mhz, but with a bit more actual data bandwidth than PCI at 66mhz...

I have allready tried installing better agp cards. The notches are not always right, it needs to have 2 notches, a lot of cards today only have the 1 notch. and I get what looks like 16color windows on boot if it doesnt know what to do because it cant bend itself all the way back to agp 2x... I have flash video problems in a big way, but videos off the hard drive run great...

Thinking of getting this card. gonna try to find it cheaper elsewhere because its not worth more than $40 in my opinion...
PCI Radeon HD5450 512mb, DX11
One review says it will run Doom 3, so that makes me think the PCI bus wont present too much of a problem, and it does Flash acceleration...

This would be the AGP alternative, and will not for sure accept the AGP 2X restriction. So it would be a plug-n-pray relying only on new-eggs awesome return policy to save me.
AGP Nvidia Ge-force 6200 512mb, DX9
And that card would not get me flash hardware acceleration for online surfing, which would be this computers main job, ideally...

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I think that I have already decided to go with the PCI solution. I am really just looking to see if someone has any past experience or information that proves this to be unwise, or knows of a modern DX11 AGP card that will fit in the slot and work... Its a battle for the best of 2 bad options.

I am hoping to upgrade the CPU's to Dual 700mhz @ 784mhz or better, and finish out the ram by bumping it up to a full 1gig. But I need to know that this video card upgrade will be worthwhile before I dump even more money into an ancient system just for my own sh1ts and giggles... Ya never know, I might also just give it a SSD drive for C: one day too

What OS do you even have it running? I don't think an SSD would even work unless you bought a SATA PCI card. I don't think it would be worth putting anything more into it, but that is up to you.

Janus67 said:

What OS do you even have it running? I don't think an SSD would even work unless you bought a SATA PCI card. I don't think it would be worth putting anything more into it, but that is up to you.

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XP SP3, and it allready has a SATA PCI card installed... But thats off topic...

If you are just using it as some sort of server, why are you looking to put a videocard in there with apparent focus on it's gaming abilities? Why not just get some basic 2d PCI card off ebay for $5?

I'm just saying, that gaming on a Pentium 3 is going to result in a bad experience regardless of what videocard you put in there.

Your PCI bus might be able to support 66Mhz due to being a server board but that does not mean a PCI Videocard would be good for anything more than 33Mhz. I don't believe they made 66mhz PCI videocards.

I would look for something like an old 9700 Pro.

I never said that it was for gaming... Where are you getting gaming from? and a 9700pro will neither physically fit, nor provide flash acceleration in hardware... only a DX11 card will be able to provide the ability to play a youtube video without having a seizure... Right now flash video is horrible on the system. Over %75 of all modern AGP cards are incapable of physicly fitting in the slot... even less are capable of running in AGP 2x mode, and of thoes, not a single one is DX11, or even DX10... I have spent a lot of time looking around.

So what is the system used for? Is it your daily driver/main computer?

Janus67 said:

So what is the system used for? Is it your daily driver/main computer?

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Its my 3rd system...

Main system is for gaming and some storage (see signature), 2nd pc is mainly just storage, and can do some gaming, the 3rd computer is storage overflow, where all the old hard drives go for a useful retirement... Its fully updated, with firefox 4, Office 2010, and it allready plays games, like max payne, serious sam, postal 2, duke nukem 3d, doom, return to castle wolfenstein, quake 3, armagetron, and others... I also use it as a sort of bench computer to test hard drives, do data swaps, data recovery, and low-level formats if called for. Did I mention that it will also burn you a mean CD and play that sh*tty DVD of your family vacation? I would like it to again become competent on the WWW and be able to throw it back into full normal usage...

PCI = 33mhz
PCI-X = 66mhz (sometimes 133mhz)
AGP = 66mhz

Simple answer to your post is that there are no AGP DX11 cards. The best I could do was track down some of the last AGP cards ever made that were DX10 and one that was 10.1 even.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-cards,1805-5.html

As to whether they will work in 2x mode or fit the slot I have no idea.

I'd really recommend gutting the core of your system and starting fresh. Even if you used throw away tech from 5-6 years ago or very cheap tech from 2-4 years ago you'd be miles ahead. You wouldn't need DX11 if your system is powerful enough.

I have an old Abit AA8XE 925XE board (PCIE) with P4 3.2 and DDR2 2x1GB I'd be happy to send you if you wanted to pay shipping, or I have a newer, but cheap combo you can PM me about if interested.

Thanks for the advise, but I am really not looking to gut this computer. Maybe in 3 or 4 years when my Main computer is due for another major overhaul and I can send the old hardware down the line... I have already explained that I am doing this for my own ammusment, and that I just "like" the damn thing...

If we could please stick to the topic people... Now that we have ruled out the possibility of a worthwhile AGP upgrade; Will the PCI solution be likely to solve my only major problem with this computer by enabling flash acceleration in hardware? Or will it be too slow to run a DVD anymore despite having a "relatively" uber-powerful GPU shoved in there...

You can't really do anything. The CPU is a serious bottleneck to anything more powerful then a ti4200. You won't have any massive performance gains.

Going to be your best bet that fits what you want. But frankly, don't expect nearly the performance the card should be giving.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161353

Maul555 said:

I have an old dual Slot 1 server board, a Tyan Tiger 100 which is about 13+ years old now... (Dual PIII 500mhz @ 560mhz, 896mb Ram, 4 HDD's, Win XP SP3, USB 2.0, sound, NIC, & SATA cards, DVD-ROMs & CD-Burner) I keep it around because I like it, its reliably performing a service for me, and I am saving the case for a future build years down the road. The AGP slot is limited to 2 modes, AGP 1x, and 2x. I currently have a Ge-force 4 MX 420 running in AGP 2x mode. I would realy like to give this thing some more power, but most AGP cards dont support AGP 2x mode, and the few that do are DX 9 cards, no better...

The question is, Should I go with what appears to be the best AGP card that will work, or just say screw it, and shove in a new DX11 PCI card? If my memory serves me right, AGP 2x is 66mhz*2, which is 133mhz, which is also the exact same speed of the PCI bus... Getting a new dx11 card would also allow flash to use hardware acceleration.

Basically, is there any advantage to sticking with the AGP slot that may be worth considering?

Click to expand...

Domino said:

You can't really do anything. The CPU is a serious bottleneck to anything more powerful then a ti4200. You won't have any massive performance gains...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161353

Click to expand...

Your thinking from a gaming perspective. I am not looking for FPS performance gains in anything but flash... Only hardware acceleration for youtube n stuff, while hopefully not making any other things worse. Why are people pointing me towards ancient DX8 and DX9 cards? they do nothing for me that I cant already do. Let me say this again... ONLY DX 11 Hardware will fully support the new adobe flash acceleration. I am hopeing that this will take that processing load off the ancient CPU's, make the videos play smooth, and add some more quality-years to the system...

I am really not sure how much clearer I can be.

Domino said:

...Going to be your best bet that fits what you want. But frankly, don't expect nearly the performance the card should be giving.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161353

Click to expand...

Thats what I figured... I was just looking for a bit more certainty from one of the halls of geekdom... I think its just too obscure of a question... Ill just have to go find out the hard way I think...

So.. You already knew the answer, but decided to be stubborn and waste our time?

You turned down free gear that would have solved your processing power problem regardless of DX11 or not, but you have the audacity to claim we're not trying to help?

Behavior like this will get you ignored quickly.

Maxvla said:

So.. You already knew the answer, but decided to be stubborn and waste our time?

You turned down free gear that would have solved your processing power problem regardless of DX11 or not, but you have the audacity to claim we're not trying to help?

Behavior like this will get you ignored quickly.

Click to expand...

Excuse me? I didnt come here to discuss the wisdom of keeping the computer around. Clarifying that is not being stubborn and wasting your time. It is cutting straight to the point and not wasting your time with minutia that I don't care about...

I do not know the answer, which was implied when I said,

"Ill just have to go find out the hard way I think..."

Click to expand...

Replies like yours will get YOU ignored quickly...

Maul555 said:

Thats what I figured... I was just looking for a bit more certainty from one of the halls of geekdom...

Click to expand...

Looks to me you knew the answer (was the PCI DX11 card) before posting the thread.

You are stubbornly holding on to a rig that is clearly holding you back, despite being offered free gear that would solve your problem.

Trying to solve an obscure problem with no alternative available is one thing, but there are so many free/cheap alternatives that your issue shouldn't even be an issue at all.

I have an old Radeon 9800 AGP card. Should work fine in your build. But a newer PCI card should be just fine. Might save you some cash too.

No Offense, but If I knew you better, I might take your free gear... But I just popped in here yesterday for basically the first time, and someone is immediately wanting my address to send me free gear. No thanks...

I am having fun with this computer. I want to see how long I can effectivly use it, within reason. So far I have not spent a single dime on that machine. I aquired all the parts and upgrades over time from spare parts and stuff. I dont mind getting a cheap video card that I can also use for troubleshooting purposes other places if it means sending that computer happily down the road for another few years. Besides, its currently got 6 IDE devices on it. I doubt your intel board has more than 1 IDE connector, and my sata card only has 1, So I would be left buying something anyways even if I did take you up on your offer.

Did I mention that the computer is a holocaust survivor? It was initially trash from an old Airforce base around here. It had to watch while it, and hundreds of computers just like it where tossed into mass graves, destined for recycling. Only a few made it out alive, and of those, only 1 was upgraded, shoved full of expansion cards and drives, and nursed back to health to live a useful life again. Why do you want to ruin such a heart-touching story?

Maul555 said:

Your thinking from a gaming perspective. I am not looking for FPS performance gains in anything but flash... Only hardware acceleration for youtube n stuff, while hopefully not making any other things worse. Why are people pointing me towards ancient DX8 and DX9 cards? they do nothing for me that I cant already do. Let me say this again... ONLY DX 11 Hardware will fully support the new adobe flash acceleration. I am hopeing that this will take that processing load off the ancient CPU's, make the videos play smooth, and add some more quality-years to the system...

I am really not sure how much clearer I can be.

Click to expand...

Any GPU accelerated application requires a CPU. I wasn't thinking for gaming.