A fairly familiar story but but thought I'd revive it... I have a slightly ailing P4 AGP system with a Quadro 980 installed. However, I am finding myself programming more and more (as opposed to just designing) so I need to upgrade my graphics hardware so I can make/run software using all the OpenGL 2.0 features. At the moment, replacing the motherboard is not an option. Also I don't think it;s worthwhile replacing the quadro with another workstation card because the AGP interface is already outdated. So my questions are - which card? - are there any AGP cards that have the OpenGL 2.1 spec? Pixel buffer handling would be useful but not imperative. Currently thinking along the lines of XFX 7950gt or Sapphire X1900Pro. Both are 512MB cards which run at about 1300MHz, but there's quite a price difference between them. Oh and the cards must have dual DVI-out. I refuse to go back to using just 1 monitor! Thoughts welcome...

Tom's hardware is your friend....

Looks like you have alot of needs there btw. Sometimes you just have to cough up the money to get what you want.

Nice link. Tom's hardware is my friend.

Yeah I was a bit woffly in asking my question - in short need an excellent AGP card that is up to OpenGL 2.0.

One thing though - on that THW review there is a small mention of the PSU required to drive the top end cards in that list. Might you have any idea how one can tell what power output is required?

Unless your current system has many hard drives and multiple (dual or quad) CPUs, a 400 W power supply will power any card you can put into the AGP slot. You can find out how much power is in your supply by reading the label on the side of it. You may have to unmount the hard drive to read the rating, depending on the model.

Not to hijack your thread, but I wonder if I should get my sister one of those cards. She likes games but is stuck on my old AGP system which I sold gave her. (gotta love siblings :) )

Also a note on PSU's (Power Supplies), the Wattage is not everything. You need good output on all of the rails, especially the 12 volt rail. PSU's do age and lose performance, so be mindful of that. PSU's and hard drives are the only PC parts I've had fail on me due to age. Well, CRT's too...