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A Packard Bell PC with a P5S800-VM motherboard had a malfunction. After some investigation, it appeared to be caused by the ATI Radeon 9550 video card.

Since it is not the first PC I used in which a malfunction is caused by an ATI video card, I would like to replace it with a video card from Nvidia or other brands.

Considering the motherboard and the constraint of the AGP 8X slot, what kind of graphics card can I mount? What specifications should I look for?

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  • Welcome to the site! We're not doing specific shopping recommendations here, so I reworded (and generalized) your question just slightly, so it wouldn't become obsolete within a few months (i.e. when there are newer models of graphics cards around).
    – slhck
    Jan 26, 2012 at 13:09
  • Thanks, from a SEO perspective your intervention is perfect :) From a user's perspective, more specificity is better, although it means reaching a minor audience (but more targeted). I specified the models because the only technical characteristics I gave are surely not enough to suggest a proper replacement. I agree with the deletion of the brand, I am open to any suggestion no matter what brand the video cards are.
    – yodabar
    Jan 26, 2012 at 15:48
  • Yeah, the point is that shopping recommendations are off-topic as you can read in the FAQ, since they're very specialized – and we're not a forum, we're a Q&A site :) I would suggest to read Q&A is Hard, Let’s Go Shopping! if you want to know more.
    – slhck
    Jan 26, 2012 at 15:50

2 Answers 2

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You can buy a NVidia GeForce 6600-6800, or ATI X-series, but your system is too old/slow to deal with any new AGP card (by new I mean more or less modern chip).

I have had this PC for 2 years a long time ago.

The major issues of that model are:

  • SiS 661FX chipset used on its P5S800-VM mobo
  • Pentium 4 519J CPU

both are bottle necks for a more powerful VGA

I've upgraded my PC with ASUS P5P800 http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5P800/

and Pentium 4 531 (with HT and extra 512 Kb of L2) http://ark.intel.com/products/27465/Intel-Pentium-4-Processor-531-supporting-HT-Technology-%281M-Cache-3_00-GHz-800-MHz-FSB%29

after that I've noticed a performance leap, so I decided to buy an ATI X1950 Pro AGPx8 But even with new mobo and CPU, my VGA could not work at 100%. DDR-1 is pretty slow (even if I oc'ed it from original 400 to 475 Mhz)

P.S. Buy a new cheap PC, even if it will be based on Intel Atom CPU you will gain in performance.

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  • Thanks very much, I could not ask for a better answer! About the PC purpose, I am not looking for high video performances, I know it is an old model. It will be ok as a test-machine for sites and web apps or as a mini-server which does not turn off randomly each 8/10 hours.
    – yodabar
    Jan 26, 2012 at 17:22
  • As a server you would not even need to replace the card. Just run it headless and RDP in when you need to make changes.
    – Hennes
    Apr 11, 2013 at 19:19
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Any video card that will go in a AGP 8x slot should work.

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