I have sitting in my hands a MaxGraphix Titan II AGP video card. Now
I've been working in 3D graphics for a while and I seem to remember
that this card was hot stuff a few years ago. I've just had an
inexpensive home system built (Athalon XP 1800, 1gig of ram, 60gig HD,
GeForce 4 PCI, low-end MSI motherboard, running Windows 2Kpro). The
issue is that my current motherboard doesn't have an AGP slot. Would
it be worth it to get a motherboard with an AGP slot so that I could
use this MaxGraphix Titan II or is the Titan II to old to make it
worth while?

jason3d-ga,
Your Titan II will be a bottleneck on your new system.  However,
although your Titan II may be outdated, I highly recommend that you
get a motherboard with an AGP slot, especially if you work in 3D
graphics, where the speed of the graphics card is absolutely crucial.
I quote:
"A major advantage of AGP is its superior bandwidth capacity.
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can travel through the bus
system of your computer in a given amount of time. A higher bandwidth
means that more data can be transferred at a much faster rate. For
example, the data rate for the AGP 1X mode is twice as fast as that of
PCI, the AGP 2X mode is four times faster, while the AGP 4X mode is
eight times faster than PCI. 4X refers to the hardware’s ability to
allow four data transfers at each clock cycle. Traditionally, only one
data transfer occurs at each clock cycle.
AGP, however, is a dedicated graphics connection used only by the
graphics accelerator, thereby improving overall system performance in
two ways:
- Graphics operations are faster because they don’t have to share bus
bandwidth with other peripherals.
- Other peripheral devices are also faster because they don’t have to
share the PCI bus with the bandwidth intensive graphics operations.
AGP neither replaces nor diminishes the necessity of PCI in the
system. It is physically, logically, and electrically independent of
the PCI bus and forms an additional connection point in the system. It
is intended for the exclusive use of graphic controllers; all other
I/O devices will continue to reside on the PCI bus."
(http://www.matrox.com/mga/archive_story/mar99/agp_advantage.cfm)

A good motherboard to purchase with an AGP slot, while supporting the
rest of your system would be the ECS K7S5A:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/products/k7s5a_3x.htm

An excellent graphics card to replace your current system would be an
nVidia nForce (http://www.geforce.com/view.asp?PAGE=nforce).  This
product has garnered many excellent reviews, outperforming many of the
graphics cards on the market
(http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1535&p=5).  If you
are going for a low price, I personally recommend the Geforce II GTS
(http://www.geforce.com/view.asp?PAGE=geforce2pro), it is an excellent
card and will give you the most bang for your buck.

To summarize, yes, your titan II is outdated, but an AGP slot is
absolutely essential nowadays, especially if you are in the field of
3D graphics.

Hope that helps.

-Tox-ga

Great and informative answer. Fast.