My ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card is fried and I need to replace it. According to the ATI/AMD website, this card has been discontinued. Can anyone recommend a similar Video Card, with approximately the same street price, that can handle fair sized graphic files?
ATI's R300 cards were released in 2002 so most anything you'll buy today will give you greater performance. The only problem is the connector that the 9800 uses (AGP) is outdated. According to newegg the last card that nvidia released that uses AGP is the GeForce 6200 (41$) or ATI's 3850 (110$) which is what I would recommend. Just keep in mind this is going to be the last time you'll be able to upgrade your GPU without also upgrading at least your motherboard. I am guessing that 110$ is in your price range as the 9800 cost much more in it's day.
Many thanks Shamb1es. Guess I should have gone with the 3850. Instead, I went with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro AGP 512MB earlier today. Since Moore's Law has overtaken me, I had been toying with the idea of upgrading my system sometime in the near future, so the bucks saved on this less expensive card can go towards a future upgrade. When I upgrade, would it be worth the cost to go dual core (perhaps I mean core 2 duo, I'm not that savvy about it yet)?
Dual core is pretty much mandatory these days. Single core CPUs make up 5% of sales if that. The question for most people is whether they should go dual core or quad core. You would be wise to update your system as AGP cards nowadays are not cost effective, and would be held back by your processor.
