Video Card REplacement

[dmgenet]

Hello,

I am helping a friend replace an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 128 mb DDR, AGP 8x video card. It sits in a Dell 8300 Pentium 4, 3.00 GHz and 1GB Mem with a 250w power supply.

The machine is used for web surfing, occasional DVD viewing, desk top publishing, photo manipulation. It will run Unreal Tournament GOTY without a problem. All in all not much gaming is done on this machine.

I am looking at an ATI Radeon 9550, 256Mb DDR2, AGP 8x, video card or similar incantation. Also considering a VisionTek Xtasy Radeon 9600, AGP 8x, 128 MB card.

Are these cards an upgrade or a downgrade to the 9800 Pro? I try to compare specs but the spec sheets seem to be inconsistent with the stats. I can't tell if I would be helping or hurting the machine's efficiency. I.e., the 9800 has 8 parallel rendering pipelines. Can't seem to find that info anywhere with the other cards.

Thanks for all your expertise and help.

[Train]

They are a downgrade.
As shown here.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-2009/3DMark06-v1.1.0-3DMark-Score,1195.html

But that 250w power supply is to small for any real upgrade too.
Examples:
9800 GT- 116W max
GTX 260 -136W

[Midknyte]

With ATI, the first number is generation. The next numbers are the "level" of the card.

#800 would be a top tier card
#600 would be a midrange card

It's harder to find AGP cards now. If he's not gaming that much, the 9550 or 9600 would be ok for Internet browsing, etc.

[dmgenet]

Thanks, guys, for the info. Helps a lot. I figured the PSU was weak for anything bigger than the Radeon 9800. Just not that important to replace the PSU at this time.