Is a x1950Pro AGP worth it on an Athlon 2500+?

[BD]

Hey, all.

I'm running an X850Pro on an Athlon 2500+ box with 2GB of RAM. My
mainboard is a Soltek 75FRN-L Nforce2.

I recently upgraded to my current card from a 9800Pro, which made a
significant difference. My framerates basically doubled, if not
tripled.

However, the x850Pro does not support Shaders V3, which is annoying.

I am considering getting the new x1950Pro AGP for shader support, as
opposed to spending money on a whole new PCIe system. I figure the 1950
should see me through at least another year.

I'm curious if anyone with a CPU that's in the same ballpark as mine
has got this new card and can attest to its performance (maybe someone
could provide a 3DMark score or something).

Just want to get a sense of how CPU bound current games are (like
Company of Heroes, the new Splinter Cell, etc), and whether I'm likely
to see a significant overall performance boost along with the Shader v3
support.

Thanks for all feedback!

BD

 

[Ted F]

Maybe if you have the System Requirements : Connection to the system power
supply is required:
450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended
(assumes fully loaded system)
512MB of system memory

 

[BD]

450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended

(assumes fully loaded system)
512MB of system memory

Pretty sure my PSU is a 400-watt, but it's not a fully loaded
mainboard. I doubt I'd see brownouts.

Thanks for that...

 

[Georg]

its my opinion that a gfx card is ALWAYS worth it, unlike the wrong
assumption that many games are very CPU heavy.
But this is just not true.

Ok, an athlon 2500 is NOT the fastest anymore...but with a graphics card you
can always crank up image quality .

I dont know...a X1950 MIGHT be overkill tho...but if you get a good deal on
it..go for it.

And slowly upgrade the other components too.


Note that games which are so demanding that only with PS3.0 you will have
some benefits (say: Gothic III ? ,
they will also make HEAVY usage of all the other parts of your system.
Nevertheless the X1950 is a good card of course.

regards

 

[First of One]

PSU is not an issue. I used to run an X1900XT (110W at full load) on an
Antec 400W with no problems whatsoever. The X1950 Pro draws about 70-75W in
the worst case.