AGP vs IGP vs IGP Starting my "new" computer

I am on a quest for information.
Specifically, if anyone has any experience with the AMD/ATI HD3200 IGP(128 dedicated plus optional shared memory).

I know what I WANT in a new computer, sadly it's not what I can AFFORD(less than a c-note).

Background:
My current gaming rig(don't laugh, it works OK for me)
AMD 64 3000+
2Gig DDR Ram
An AGP nvidia 6800XT(256Mb).
many TB of harddrives.
WinXP


Now I know, it's ANCIENT by today's standards. Most people wouldn't dream of even doing mild gaming on it. but it was top of the line when I built it(the gfx card was a later upgrade). I've saved a little money for new parts, and have some bits left over from client upgrades... "they" call it electronic waste disposal. I call it free hardware upgrades for me. Stays out of the landfill either way.


Now the decision I have to make is between three motherboards. All around the same price. One has AGP and a PCI-Ex16 slot(lets me reuse the 6800XT while I save). One comes with the HD3200+128 on-board. The third (and cheapest) runs an nvidia 8200igp. I can live with the 6800xt for now. it's acceptably for all my play, except for Cimerora. Would the HD3200 give me similar, better, or worse performance? Would playing on a 8200 be more painful than a regen nerfbat beatdown.

I'm not looking for the best(right now anyhow) I just don't want to end up with a downgrade till I can afford one of the shiny HD5800 series. I had actually considered a Radeon HD 4650 1GB in AGP format for a few days, but I think the AGP bus would bottleneck that card too much, cost as much as a motherboard(with pci-e) upgrade, and not be "current enough" for long enough. I dread seeing my former Gaming Glory Rigs reduced to serving up e-mails and mp3s.

Edit in answer to a PM:
The "new" machine will start with 2Gb ddr2, and a single core 2.4Ghz. All three boards will handle, and eventually be filled with, 3.4Ghz quad-core, and 8-16Gb ram. Upgrades coming as free parts, or enough money, reach me.

Well unless the two integrated boards offer you something *overwhelmingly* fantastic compared to the board without, take board #1 and reuse your card. Both of those chipsets are a step down from what you have now.

That's what i was afraid of.

Though the IGP's are a few generations newer, the raw power must be missing :-(

Well "IGPs" and "raw power" are rarely if ever used in the same sentence. Unless it's to tell you the first lacks the second.

Keep in mind that IGPs are really never meant for gaming. It's budget video for folks who don't need much because all they do is web surf and use Office. Doesn't take a huge card to do that.

Well IGPs have progressed toward Aero desktop support and video decoding than gaming. Don't forget that 3D gaming is a minority when it comes to what PCs are used for, even in the home.

If it works, it'll run around 20-30 FPS (fortunately COH is an older title... compared to Aion the requirements are far less), but don't dare hop blindly into a Rikti Invasion or Mothership Raid, let alone push the quality slider past "Performance" unless you want a crash to occur. Even on performance, I'd turn shading down to Low w/World Bumpmaps, cut world/char. textures down to Medium or less, and reduce the particle count to 25000 or less (but not below 1000... you'd like to see your own powers, right?)

And that's the best case: newer IGP's that come out may have the same limitations as laptops when it comes to driver support. I put a Zotac GeForce 9300 into a low profile PC I built for a friend, and installed CoH temporarily: 32 FPS on average, 22 when it's in a busy area or CoV, figured everything was gravy, so I deleted CoH and put in WoW (but I couldn't test it past the login, since I don't have an account and didn't feel like putting in for a trial.) He got on average 14 FPS or less with the manufacturer driver peppered with a BSOD every 45 minutes when in game, and what's more, the Forceware drivers did even worse. Ran Windows Vista perfectly fine with Aero support, just ate it on full DirectX games.

It did work out in the end, NVidia advised me to contact Zotac for an updated driver, and I had to wait until Zotac made an update 6 weeks later. But I got lucky. My friend could have easily asked for his money back anytime, and I'd be left with a tiny PC I didn't need or could be able to upgrade easily. (Low profile boxes don't like the newer full-size cards.)

If you found a motherboard with AGP/PCI-Express, the PCI-Express slot most likely isn't PCI-Express 2.0, which would be a bottleneck as well if you want the Radeon HD 5800 cards later. I tried to do the same three years ago: build a AGP system around faster memory and SATA to later gut the parts and put it into a faster motherboard with PCI-E. Then a recession happened and I kinda forgot the plan.

So, I guess my point would be two-fold:

-- AGP is dead. Let it go with your new machine. PCI-Express 2.0/2.1 cards with thank you. (PCI-Ex 3.0 comes out this year too.)
-- A graphics card is better than IGP any day, even if it's just to hold you over until something better comes along.

$35 gets this, it's the closest match to what you have now. It's not an upgrade I'm afraid, it's actually 5% slower than your 6800XT, but for the price, it makes a decent backup card should a future card overheat and fry itself: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-469-_-Product

You could go cheaper, but if you pay less than $25, IGP may make a better answer (GeForce 6200 cards are still being made. New in box. Hell if I know why.)

Well, I went to Fry's on Friday.

They had sales and deals.

$100 out the door for a new motherboard, dual-core processor, and a gt210.

Already have the ram(well, enough for now), hard drives, etc...

and $40 in rebates already in the mail.

So for the same price of just a motherboard with IGP that I WAS looking at, I'm ready to go, and without shipping.

From what I've read, the gt210 should be about to the 9400, a step down from the 9500 that Tahquitz linked. Stock, it's running as good, or better than my 6800XT. I'll try for some benchmarking soon, but it'll be mostly pointless, since the new system and fresh os install may more than make up for any difference in graphics card performance.

Started modding this afternoon. the gt210 has already had it's cooling upgraded from aluminum heatsink/fan to triple heatpipe/copper heatsink/BIG fan. Baby heatsinks for the memory, and overclocking first thing tomorrow. Pushed the Intel dualcore from 2.5 to 3.1 on stock air. Think I'll hold off on the ram, till I get new, faster ram. This stuff I'm using now is in the "works for now" category.

When the "current" video cards drop, I'm sure I'll want a better video card, and by then it should be easier to afford(price drops, used cards, etc.). In the meantime, I suppose no "ultra mode" for me, just pretty good "regular" mode. which makes me a happy gamer.

The old system may yet get a 3650 down the road, just for Hulu/Flash10.1 support. That and the twin video capture cards, should make for a perfectly fine home theater PC(after I return to stock speeds, and temperatures with quiet fans).

Thanks eeryone for their advise.

Just for giggles, here's a completely biased, plagiarized, and informative(and mostly correct) Listing of graphics cards of relevance to CoH. I included even some OLD old cards, as they worked when the game was young(issue 3 anyone?). I started with the GeForce 2, since that was the "minimum" listed on my first City of Heroes box set.





1. Radeon HD5970 4GB
2. Radeon HD5970 2GB
3. Geforce GTX295 1792MB
4. Radeon HD4870X2 2GB
5. Radeon HD5870 1GB
6. Radeon HD4850X2 2GB
7. Radeon HD5850 1GB
8. Geforce GTX285 2GB
9. Geforce GTX285 1GB
10. Radeon HD4850X2 1GB
11. Radeon HD4890 2GB
12. Geforce GTX 275 1792MB
13. Geforce GTX 280 1GB
14. Geforce GTX 275 896MB
15. Radeon HD4890 1GB
16. Radeon HD5830 1GB
17. Geforce 9800GX2 1GB
18. Geforce GTX 260 1792MB
19. Radeon HD4870 1GB
20. Geforce GTX 260-216 896MB
21. Radeon HD5770 1GB
22. Radeon HD4870 512MB
23. Geforce GTX 260 896MB
24. Radeon HD3870X2 1GB
25. Radeon HD4860 1GB
26. Radeon HD5750 1GB
27. Geforce GTS 250 1GB
28. Radeon HD4850 1GB
29. Geforce 9800GTX+ 512MB/GTS250 512MB
30. Radeon HD4850 512MB
31. Radeon HD4770 512MB
32. Geforce 8800Ultra 768MB
33. Geforce 9800GTX 512MB
34. Geforce 8800GTX 768MB
35. Geforce 8800GTS 512MB (G92)
36. Radeon HD4830 512MB
37. Geforce 8800GT 1GB /9800GT 1GB
38. Geforce 8800GT 512MB/9800GT 512MB/GTS240 512MB
39. Radeon HD5670 1GB
40. Radeon HD5670 512MB
41. Radeon HD2900XT 1GB
42. Radeon HD4730 512MB
43. Geforce 9600GT 1GB
44. Geforce 9600GT 512MB
45. Geforce GT 240 1GB
46. Geforce GT 240 512MB
47. Radeon HD2900XT 512MB

----------------------------------above here lies only pci-e--------------------------------------

48. Radeon HD3870 512MB

Have never actually SEEN one of these for sale, so I don't count it against the 4670 which is in stock at newegg.

49. Radeon HD4670 512MB

Best AGP card available ever? Still in the sub-$100 range

50. Geforce 8800GTS 640MB
51. Radeon HD2900Pro 512MB
52. Radeon HD3850 512MB
53. Geforce 9600GSO 768MB
54. Geforce 8800GT 256MB
55. Geforce 8800GTS 320MB
56. Geforce 7950GX2 1GB
57. Geforce 8800GS 384MB/9600GSO 384MB
58. Geforce 9600GSO 512MB (G94)
59. Radeon HD5570 1GB
60. Radeon HD3850 256MB
61. Radeon X1950XTX 512MB
62. Geforce 7900GTX 512MB
63. Radeon X1900XTX 512MB
64. Radeon X1950XT 256MB
65. Radeon X1900XT 512MB
66. Radeon X1900XT 256MB
67. Geforce 7900GTO 512MB
68. Geforce 7800GTX 512MB
69. Geforce 7950GT 512MB
70. Radeon X1950Pro 512MB
71. Radeon HD2900GT 256MB
72. Radeon X1950Pro 256MB
73. Radeon HD4650 512MB
74. Geforce 8600GTS 512MB
75. Geforce 8600GTS 256MB
76. Geforce 7900GT 512MB
77. Geforce GT 220 1GB
78. Geforce GT 220 512MB
79. Geforce 9500GT 1GB
80. Geforce 9500GT 512MB
81. Radeon X1800XT 512MB
82. Radeon X1800XT 256MB
83. Geforce 7900GT 256MB
84. Geforce 7800GTX 256MB
85. Geforce 7900GS 512MB
86. Geforce 8600GT 512MB
87. Radeon X1900GT 256MB
88. Geforce 7800GS Bliss+ 512MB
89. Radeon X1950GT 512MB
90. Radeon X1900GT Rev2 256MB
91. Geforce 7800GT 256MB
92. Radeon X1800XL 256MB
93. Geforce 7800GS 256MB
94. Radeon X1800GTO 256MB
95. Geforce 8600GT 256MB
96. Radeon X1650XT 256MB
97. Geforce 7600GT 256MB
98. Radeon HD2600XT 256MB
99. Radeon HD3650 256MB
100. Radeon HD4550 512MB
101. Radeon HD5450 512MB
102. Radeon HD4350 512MB
103. Radeon X850XTPE 256MB
104. Radeon X850XT 256MB
105. Geforce 7600GTS 256MB
106. Radeon HD2600Pro 256MB
107. Radeon X800XT/PE 256MB
108. Geforce 6800Ultra/EE 256MB
109. Geforce 6800GT 256MB
110. Geforce 6800GS 256MB
111. Radeon X800XL 256MB
112. Radeon X800GTO 256MB/X800GTO2 256MB
113. Radeon X850Pro 256MB
114. Radeon X800Pro 256MB
115. Radeon X800GTO 256MB
116. Geforce 6800GS AGP 256MB
117. Chrome 440GTX 256MB
118. Geforce 9400GT 512MB
119. Geforce GT 210 512MB

This is my current card. But I'm overclocking the snot out of it. So far so good.

120. Geforce 8500GT 256MB
121. Chrome 430 256MB
122. Radeon X1650Pro 256MB
123. Radeon X1600XT 256MB
124. Geforce 7600GS 256MB
125. Radeon HD2400XT 256MB
126. Geforce 6800 256MB
127. Radeon X800GT 256MB
128. Radeon X800 256MB
129. Radeon X1300XT 256MB
130. Radeon X1600Pro 256MB
131. Radeon HD3450 256MB
132. Geforce 8400GS 256MB
133. Geforce 6800XT/LE 256MB

This was my old AGP card, and it had the nv41 chip, so no extra pipes, no extra shaders, and no overclocking available. ;-( Still, I could reasonably play anywhere, with some eyecandy, at decent resolution. Except for Romans. In the Imperious Taskforce, this card was lucky to reach multiple frames per second. Often, the meter read "XXXXX pages of text per second", especially on the hill-of-gfx-doom.

134. Geforce 7300GT 256MB
135. Geforce 6600GT 256MB
136. Radeon HD2400Pro 256MB
137. Radeon X700XT 256MB
138. Radeon 9800XT 256MB
139. Radeon X700Pro 256MB
140. Radeon 9800Pro 256MB
141. Radeon 9800Pro 128MB
142. Radeon 9700Pro 256MB
143. Geforce 6600 256MB
144. Radeon 9800 256MB
145. Radeon X700 256MB
146. Radeon 9800SE 256MB
147. Chrome S27 256MB
148. Radeon 9700 128MB
149. Geforce 5950Ultra 256MB
150. Geforce 5900Ultra 256MB
151. Geforce5900 128MB
152. Geforce 5800Ultra 128MB
153. Geforce 5900XT 128MB
154. Geforce 5800 128MB
155. Radeon X1300Pro 128MB
156. Radeon X600XT 128MB
157. Radeon 9600XT 128MB
158. Geforce TI4800 128MB
159. Geforce TI4600 128MB
160. Radeon X600Pro 128MB
161. Radeon 9500Pro 128MB
162. Radeon 9600Pro 128MB
163. Geforce TI4800SE 128MB
164. Geforce TI4400 128MB
165. Radeon X1550 128MB
166. Radeon X1300 128MB
167. Radeon 9800SE 128MB
168. Radeon X600 128MB
169. Radeon 9600 128MB
170. Radeon 9500 128MB
171. Geforce 6600LE 128MB
172. Radeon X1300SE 128MB
173. Geforce 6200 128MB
174. Geforce 5700Ultra 128MB
175. Geforce 5700 128MB
176. Geforce 7300GS 128MB
177. Geforce 6200LE 128MB
178. Radeon X550 128MB
179. Geforce 5600Ultra FC 128MB
180. Geforce 5600Ultra 128MB
181. Radeon 9550 128MB
182. Geforce TI4200 128MB
183. Geforce 5600 128MB
184. Geforce 5600XT 128MB

This was my "City Of villains Makes my compute cry" upgrade card. Modded ad overclocked like a fiend, and worked well till around issue 6 when it let loose with the magic smoke.

185. Radeon 9600SE 128MB
186. Geforce 7300LE 128MB
187. Radeon X1050 128MB
188. Radeon X300 128MB
189. Geforce 7300SE 128MB
190. Geforce 7200GS 128MB
191. Geforce 7100GS 128MB
192. Radeon 9550SE 128MB
193. Radeon 9200Pro 128MB
194. Geforce 3 TI500 64MB
195. Geforce 5500 128MB
196. Radeon 8500 128MB
197. Radeon 9000Pro 128MB
198. Radeon 9200 128MB
199. Geforce 5200Ultra 128MB
200. Radeon 9250 128MB
201. Radeon 9000 128MB
202. Matrox Parhelia
203. Geforce 4 MX460 64MB
204. Geforce 5200 64MB
205. Voodoo5 6000
206. Geforce 3 64MB
207. Radeon 8500LE 64MB
208. Geforce 3 TI200 64MB
209. Geforce 4 MX440 64MB

This was where I began my costumed double life. The card still lives in someone's active e-mail/websurfing computer. You just couldn't kill this little trooper.

210. Radeon 9200SE 64MB
211. Geforce 2 Ultra 64MB
212. Radeon 7500 64MB
213. Geforce 2 TI 64MB
214. Geforce 2 Pro 64MB
215. Voodoo5 5500
216. Geforce 2 GTS 64MB
217. Geforce 4 MX420 64MB
218. Radeon DDR (Later Renamed Radeon 7200)
219. Geforce 256 DDR 32MB
220. Geforce 2 MX400 64MB

Yep, I'm doing it WAY wrong, but it's what works for me.

Well all that matters is that what you have now performs better than what you had before. If you can now run the game with better settings and/or at a higher resolution while maintaining the same or better frame rate, then even better.

The E3300 may be stunted by the lack of L2 cache compared to other Core 2 CPUs but it's still faster than any Pentium D ever sold. The G 210 may be a low end introductory video card but it outperforms the $450 video cards from 6-7 years ago.

It's easy to laugh off low end CPUs and video cards. First rarely anyone reviews them and when they do they test them under conditions that could only make them look worse. For video cards this is done by testing games at max quality settings at a high resolution. That's like taking your Honda Fit and racing it against a Top Fuel Funny Car. Gee I wonder how well it will do? If all you have is a 1280x1024 monitor, do you really need a $300 video card to get good performance? Does turning the quality knob down a notch or two really noticeable if you aren't looking for the differences?

As for CPUs, the difference between performance from best to worse, per core, is around 2 to 1. That's why in today's CPU benchmarks the number of cores is more important. I'm sure you would appreciate a 6 core, $1100 CPU like the i7-980X if you photoshop, render 3D scenes or encode video all day for a living. In that case you will see a 4-6x performance improvement over the lowly E3300. But is it worth over $1000 more for only 60-70% improvement in gaming? Of course not.

Sorry, it's easy to forget how much performance you can buy today for a pittance relative to only a few years ago.

Nothing but smiles here. Grats Ironsmiter!

well, it's official. that 210, with the 3300 KILLS my old system in performance.

The only problem is, apparently, the board won't post without at least ddr2 - 800.
And I only have a half gig of that... till the store opens tomorrow.

Once I loaded into the game, I easily cranked up settings, and STILL got better FPS than before.

Sadly, it takes a good 5 min to zone. So, it's back to the old system tonight. Benchmarks will have to wait.

If you can find memory that's cheaper but rated at a faster speed, remember that you can use it if it's the same type.

Important to remember as hardware retailers shore up on selling older DDR2 memory DIMMs that aren't selling as much. My 533Mhz box two years ago needed more memory, Newegg sold it but ran out of stock, and no one carried the sticks. I ended up giving up and partaking at a local sale in a Staples and put in 667 Mhz instead. It worked out well, and I ended up $30 cheaper than the 533Mhz price on Newegg (which was still out of stock).

Just remember the DDR2/DDR3/SODIMM jazz can't be substituted: if you get DDR3 or a DDR2 SODIMM (For laptops) when you need a DDR2 DIMM for a desktop, that's a no go. (I bought a SODIMM instead of a DIMM by accident before, I know they're shorter, I still brainfarted until a day later when I looked at the package. It happens.)

So, I've now tested on a HD3200, my g210(now with enough system memory), and a borrowed g240.

HD3200(1.6Ghz Amd mv-40, 2Gb ram) works as well as my 6800XT(2Ghz athlon64, 2Gb ram), but with slightly higher framerates, on the same settings. Entirely Playable. Avoid Hami raids, but Cim is OK.
The g210(2.5Ghz celeron e3300, 2Gb ram) runs a bit better than the other two, but I can turn on more eye candy, without dropping frames.
The 240(2.5 Celeron e3300, 2GB ram) just clean blows everything else out of the water.

What this means to me?
Pretty looking "normal mode". No Ultra Mode, ever.
I'm ok with that, till I can afford one of those shiny gtx285 or similar.

Till Then, Happy Hunting.

Congrats. Not everyone can have the maximum pretty, but if you're happy, that's plenty good.

Update...

There was a setting in bios. No explication in the manual, but eventually found it on the intel website.
The e3300 I'm using supports virtualization under windows7. Under Windows XP, all it does if ***** everything. Turned it off, and WOW!

Before the bios switch was pressed, I was able to compare my computers as being almost equal graphically, and my old one much better in launch speed(4 seconds old vs 20 new, to launch mozilla). After turning that switch to 'off', it's a whole different ballgame. Not only are normal applications faster, but CoH fps rates climbed dramatically.

Once my 4GB ram(ddr2-1066) upgrade arrives, we'll see how far and fast this setup can actually be pushed. If it's this good on a single halfgig stick of 667, dual channel 2gig sticks capable of handling the overclocks should do wonders. :-)