AGP graphics for Spore

[Gargoyle]

A friend of mine has an old Dell (Northwood 2.4, I think) that he'd like to upgrade to run Spore. He's using onboard video now, and that just won't cut it.

I have an excellent AGP 7600gt, but those are hard to find these days, and I'm not ready to part with mine yet. The ATI 3000 series seems to be really buggy when implemented as AGP cards, according to Newegg reviews.

What about an ATI X1650? Is that a good price/performance spot?

[primesuspect]

What's his budget?

I found a bunch of modern AGP cards in the marketplace (http://icrontic.pgpartner.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=5/form_keyword=agp%20radeon/rd=1/skd=1/st=query).

[Gargoyle]

Under $100, I think.

[Thrax]

I've read nothing about the 3000 series being bad on AGP. And you know that I love my hardware.

[Gargoyle]

Just figured out another constraint: the Dell came with a 250W power supply. Might need to get something that sucks less juice.

I've done some Googlin', and it looks like the power consumption of the 7600 GS (http://icrontic.pgpartner.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=5/form_keyword=7600%20gs%20agp/st=sort/sortby=priceA) and 2600 Pro (http://icrontic.pgpartner.com/search_attrib.php/form_keyword=2600+pro+agp/Search=Go/page_id=5/st=sort/sortby=priceA) are both pretty low. Those sound okay to you guys? They should be sufficient for Spore.

[pseudonym]

Ok gents. I JUST did this and went with an ATI HD 3850. About 145 bucks but it WAS buggy. No matter which ATI drivers I used (There are ones that are supposed to work... ooops they don't), I could not get the card to work correctly but going to the latest Omega drivers worked just fine. Kind of disapointing but it did take my 3dmark specs up to about 5000. I do have a 500W supply in the computer though which sounds like it might be a problem for you. I consider the upgrade completely worth it but I am most definitely CPU limited right now. I'm installing Spore right now too. I'll tell you how it runs.

Specs-
ABIT NF7-s v2
AMD 3000+
1 gig ram
500W PS

[GnomeWizardd]

the 3000 series was buggy but hte 4000 series is all gravy now, Id recommend a Nvidia card for AGP

[Gargoyle]

Looking through X-bit Lab's old reviews, it looks like the 7600 GS and 2600 Pro both use around 30 watts of power. I recommended those so he could be safe with his PSU, and I'll let him have the fun of choosing between them. Thanks guys!