Hi, I am looking to upgrade my video card in an old computer I still use. It is running linux currently so I would prefer nvidia as they seem to have good drivers for that os. At the moment it has a geforce 2mx 32mb card in it. I think my motherboard only supports AGP 2x or 4x.

Anyway my question is what is the best nvidia card I can get that will work in my mobo? (abit KT7a)

AGP 8x cards will also work in 4x mode, so you can get any AGP card and it will work.

Wow, that's a blast from the past.

I think the best Nvidia AGP video card is the Geforce 7800 or 7900, but maybe an nvidia fanboy might know of a better one. I'm more of an ATI person, so I can tell you the best ATI card is the Radeon 3850 or 4670 (depending on your needs). Keep in mind that all of these video cards need at least a 400W power supply.

i think it was the NV7900GS that was Nvidias last AGP card.

The 7 Series was the last nVIdia cards that were under the AGP flavor, as Dadge has mentioned. I cannot back this up, but the price you can get for the highest performing video card may be equal to a Revo or something, with DC Atom and a 9300 GS, which wouldn't be too shabby. Add the fact that it can fit anywhere and runs as cool as... I cannot make a reference, but it is good. I'd look for something like a 6200 AGP (find at BestBuy or something) for $50 or less in other PC stores still runs fine for such workstation purposes.

I'd still say to choose an ATi - the X1950 is a whooper of a card and is uber cheap. My Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO 512MB AGP card with an Accelerox2 cooler cost me £38.56.

Bear in mind, no matter what video card you get, you're going to be pretty heavily CPU limited.

also bear in mind that whatever you do with that thing its probably going to sap 10 times as much power as a new system that probably wont be any more expensive than hunting down a rare modern agp card

Quote from dadge :

i think it was the NV7900GS that was Nvidias last AGP card.

Yep that's correct.

The rest of your system is very old and will limit your performance.

Try and find someone with a card like that who will let you try it before you pay big money to get one from somewhere to find out your system doesn't work with it.
It's an old board, wouldn't surprise me if it just doesn't boot at all with that card in it.
(Used to have an Abit KT7a myself, it didn't like my TI-4400 much either)

Quote from shaun463 :

I'd still say to choose an ATi - the X1950 is a whooper of a card and is uber cheap. My Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO 512MB AGP card with an Accelerox2 cooler cost me £38.56.

Quote from no_one :

It is running linux currently so I would prefer nvidia as they seem to have good drivers for that os.

Thanks for the suggestions, I didn't realise agp 8x cards were backwards compatable so that should make finding a good one easier. Also I have checked the psu and it is 400W so hopefully I will be ok on that front.

Just been having a browse around on ebay and found this card going cheap http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XFX-GEFO ... W&hash=item27b52e2004

I had a quick look for a 7900 GS agp card but they were way out of my budget!

Edit: just found a 7800 going cheap! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XpertVis ... W&hash=item3cb0f7e739

I don't think that first card would be any good for me anyway as it doesn't seem to have vga out :/

I know what he said - but ATi actually have very good support for Linux, and an X1950 would trounce the 6800.

Quote from shaun463 :

I know what he said - but ATi actually have very good support for Linux

Nope.

no_one: a 6800 GT is actually better than 7600 GS, except if you need VDPAU (6-series don't support it).

Thanks for the info Mr Reijans, but that 6800 GT I linked to won't work for me as it only had DVI output, no vga. I ended up bidding for and winning that 7600 GS.

I guess even if it is not ultimatly as fast as the 6800 it will be alot faster than my current card!

You can use a DVI->VGA adapter if you want

Quote from Whiskey :

You can use a DVI->VGA adapter if you want

aaah why didn't you tell me about this before Oh well it's done now I'm sure the 7600 GS is a decent card, right? (right??)

Quote from no_one :

aaah why didn't you tell me about this before Oh well it's done now I'm sure the 7600 GS is a decent card, right? (right??)

It definitively won't be bottleneck for LFS (unless you are playing on such resolutions as 2560x1440).

Quote from no_one :

aaah why didn't you tell me about this before

You didn't asked for it