I had an X800 Pro AGP back when it was new. I picked it over the 6600GT due to the small performance increase. I still have the card and it did work well in HL2 etc.

Saying this it was a very hot and loud card. Something that I try and avoid these days.

It depends on exactly what you are after, but if you want some reliable I would go for a more mid-range card that runs a bit cooler.

Honestly I'm not sure of the TDP of any of these cards but I would look at something like a 7600GT or maybe even a 7900GT (although that might be pushing it).

It depends on what you want from a XP gamimg machine. Is it DX9? If so you don't have that many options because you need a card that is compatible with Windows 98. From nVidia you are pretty much restricted to GeForce 6 and, if you are willing to use patched unsupported drivers, GeForce 7. That being said, wasn't the GF7 the family that started having leadless solder issues? If so, I'd go for a mid-range option and keep it as cool as possible instead of a high end version.
If DX9 isn't a goal, a good GeForce4 TI or GeForce FX are nice enough. I have no idea how ATi cards fare though.

Ati cards...
Well, if you CAN live versus bad drivers...
Radeon 9xxx series - best cards are Radeon 9800 XT or the R360 variant of Radeon 9800 Pro. Plus R350 Radeon 9800 Pro. They are solid and not so rare. No leadless soldering. Dx9.0 + F-buffer.
Radeon Xxxx series - X800 XT, X850 Pro, X850 XT. Rare (they were rare even in 2004-2005), leadless soldering (at least on my X850 XT PE), Catalyst 7.12 and later have completely broken OpenGL. Dx9.0b.

DX9 is a want, but most games are DX7/DX8

Whatever you end up with, just know that you're limited to AGP 4x with the KT333 chipset. 9800PROs are great, but the 9600XT is a good card too. Even a Geforce 4MX would be a worthy upgrade to a 2MX. Just depends on what you can get for the right amount of $$.

I guess by leadless soldering you mean BGA packaging? In general, BGA (ball grid array) chips don't get as hot, and are more reliable to manufacture. The problem is that the equipment to perform the post production inspection (ie. X-ray machines) is extremely expensive. Anyway, with stubborn BGAs you can usually fix the problem reflowing the chips with a hotplate. One of my coworkers used to fix countless Xbox's with the "red ring of death" this way.

Even with quad packs you have cold joint issues. Your best bet is just to get knowledgable on how to fix this old stuff if that's what you're into. No warranties or tech support anymore. And if you chuck it, it's one less in existence. 😀

Check out this topic... Triple-Boot: W98SE 16bit, XP Pro 32bit, W10 64bit

He's using a 7600gt successfully in a triple boot (xp win98 10) configuration.

It all comes down to what kind of Windows 98 support do you want. Nvidia started dropping legacy features starting with the 6000 family, so the FX is the last family of cards that supports a number of old features. While you can get Geforce 7000 to work, check if it is compatible with the games you wanna play beforehand.

Oh, manbearpig, the leadless solder issue is because RoHS basically dictaded that lead should be removed from solder. Lead makes the solder more flexible, so less prone to breaking from repeatedly heating up and cooling off. A bunch of hardware from that timeframe has issues with it as apparently the industry was still used to design systems and cooling solutions with the old (and better) leaded solder.

Getting a 7600gs agp for cost of shipping

candle_86 wrote:

Getting a 7600gs agp for cost of shipping

Nice!