Should I get an AGP or PCI video card?

I had to open up my old computer because of a noisy fan and noticed the fan on my PNY Verto GeForce 5200 is not spinning. I do have a fan on the side of the case pointed pretty close to the video card, so this may be enough to keep it cool. I haven't had any noticeable graphics problems, so I might not buy a new card.



But if I do need to buy a new card, should I go with AGP or PCI? From what I'm reading, I should stay away from 64-bit cards. I'd like to have both DVI and VGA output as I may upgrade the monitor later on. I don't really use this computer (I have a MacBook) so I don't need a power house (and I don't want to spend a lot of $$) but I want something decent. Newegg has a Nvidia 5200 and 5500 for about the same price. I'm assuming I should go with a 5500, but should I do PCI or AGP (if I get to choose).



I might be upgrading this computer soon and will move the insides to another case in another room that rarely gets used.|||For everyday business use like word processing, e-mail, looking at photos, browsing the web etc it doesn't matter. Any video card can handle that.



But for movies or any gaming at all (even 7-8 year old titles) you'd want AGP. The PCI bus is just ridiculously slow by comparison. By the way, both AGP and PCI are obsolete now. PCI-Express is the current industry-standard interface for video cards.



There isn't any appreciable difference between the GeForce FX5200 and FX5500, both were ok years ago, but crap nowadays. If gaming isn't a concern for this machine, just get a PCI card... 64-bit is fine for those. A 128-bit PCI card costing $75 is still vastly inferior to a $40 AGP or PCI-Express card.



The one advantage of PCI- you can transfer a PCI card to another machine (almost every motherboard has PCI slots, even current ones) whereas AGP video cards can only be used on AGP motherboards.



If you decide to replace your old card, I'd recommend a GeForce 6200, which is available in both AGP and PCI- it's a nice cheap card for older systems.



The Radeon X1550 is another decent PCI card, but it costs about $70 (which is way too much for any PCI card) compared to $45 for the 6200.