Old School AGP Card

[Da6onet]

While I refurbish my old desktop, I'm looking to max out it's AGP slot with the best card possible. It's an Asus P3B-F which will support a 4X card (runs it at 2X).

System Specs
Motherboard: Asus P3B-F (Intel 440BX)
Processor:     Pentium III 1.0GHz (Slot 1)
Memory:       1GB (4x256MB) PC100 ECC SDRAM
Harddrives:   Maxtor 10GB (5400rpm) IDE and Western Digital 80GB (7200rpm) IDE
Sound:         Creative Sound Blaster Live!
Graphics:      *****Nvidia TNT2 Ultra 32MB <--- Looking to upgrade to something with at least 128MB*****

Also if someone can recommend a decent DVD/CDRW Combo drive I'd like to replace my current ghetto setup

I have an old 2X DVDROM drive with a hardware decoder (yes it has a card in one of my PCI slots) and a slow ass HP 16/4/2 CDRW drive (cost me $200 at the time!).

[Lithium]

I have a plextor PX-740A dvd burner sitting in a box that I will probably never use. If you PM me with a reasonable offer it's yours.

[Phienyx]

Da6, looks like you are doing the same thing I'm doing.  I wouldn't mind hearing a recommendation for a good AGP vid card myself.

[Da6onet]

Just read this from nVidia's website under a technical brief

"The AGP 3.0 specification provides a smooth upgrade path to AGP 8X. The
mechanical bus specification remains the same. AGP 8X speeds and capabilities are achieved by taking advantage of some previously unused pins, but in a manner that facilitates the support of AGP 8X cards in existing AGP 2X and 4X systems, as well as new systems that fully leverage the 8X interface. NVIDIA AGP 8X graphics solutions will be able to detect the AGP level of the host system, and automatically configure the AGP interface to run in 3.0 mode (at 4X or 8X speeds), or in 2.0 mode (at 2X or 4X speeds). Therefore, a new NVIDIA graphics solution will be fully capable of 8X speeds, and will be completely compatible with 2X, 4X, and 8X systems. The NVIDIA-based cards will automatically deliver the maximum speed supported by the host system."

That was under the GeForce 4 Ti section.

[Da6onet]

After doing some more research, the current contenders are

ATI X1950Pro
vs
nVidia 7950GT
Side by Side

[Phienyx]

Wow.  I'm not sure I want to spend that much on a vid card when I am in the middle of (slowly) building a completely new and updated system.  with my current system, i am merely looking to improve performance a little bit.

*brain wheels start turning*

[Da6onet]

Aye I can empathize Phienyx. There are two things I was unaware of when I started thinking about this (last night :-p)
1. That while AGP is a "dead" technology, there are still new cards on the market :-p

2. I don't think my power supply can't handle said newer cards (250W ftl)

That said, I think I'll stick with the following limitations.
1. The GPU cannot be rated faster than my CPU :-p
2. The card can't suck more power than my PSU can handle.

[Da6onet]

Ok new contenders (more reasonable)

ATI 9800XT
or
nVidia FX5950 Ultra

[Lithium]

Ratio sold me his 5950 back in the day. It was a good card that served me well for a year.