You have plenty of choices. Your K7S5A supports AGP 4X cards (1.5V
operation on I/O).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9639&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Subcategory=48
There are two main brands there, ATI or Nvidia based solutions.
ATI uses PCI Express GPU chips on their newest cards. They use a bridge
chip
to convert to AGP protocol. The "Rialto" chip is the one here, on the back
of the video card, surrounded by pink protective material. Rialto is a
4X/8X
bridge.
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-102-851-S04?$S640W$
The ATI HD 4650 would be a relatively powerful card for gaming. I know you
don't care about gaming, and that would be its chief advantage. A second
advantage it would have, is acceleration for playback of certain kinds of
video. So if you found your CPU wasn't powerful enough to play back DVDs
for example, the GPU on a card like this may provide some measure of
acceleration on playback. A third advantage of modern cards like this one,
is support for dual link DVI interface, allowing a 30" Apple monitor to be
driven by the card. Owning this card might also enable the AVIVO
converter software which you can download from ATI/AMD. The AVIVO software
was offered at one time, for video format conversion (if you process
movies
you've downloaded).
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-102-851-S01?$S640W$
You'll notice that card has two DVI connectors. If you have a VGA monitor,
they include a passive adapter dongle to make the proper 15 pins for VGA.
It is shown as an item included within the package. ("DVI to VGA")
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-102-851-S05?$S640W$
The main downside of the most modern ATI cards, is the state of the
drivers.
You should read the reviews on Newegg, to find the location of the best
driver
for the card. As long as the reviews for the card can identify a good
driver version to use, this is a safe purchase.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814102851
On the Nvidia side of things, Nvidia too used to make bridged designs.
They'd take their new PCI Express chips and add a bridge chip they
designed
called "HSI". The story is, that the foundry making the HSI chip, is no
longer making it. This effectively means the end of Nvidia addressing
the AGP market in an active way.
Interesting. This 7600GS still has the HSI chip on it. The HSI chip is the
small rectangular aluminum heatsink below the main fan. This card has
VGA and DVI on the faceplate, so for a single monitor, no adapter dongle
need be installed.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814143069
The Geforce 6200 is about the oldest one I know of, that still has driver
support. (I haven't checked lately to see if it is still on the newest
drivers.)
This would support a 1280x1024 monitor without any complaints, but you
never
know - it might have issues with higher resolution monitors if you buy one
some day. The driver situation on this should be OK. The keying on this
one, shows universal keying, so in theory, you could even slap this
card in a ten year old, AGP equipped computer.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130452
A number of the 6200 cards are fanless. They still get warm. Depending on
the cooling present in the computer case, they may get hot while you're
gaming. I own a couple fanless FX5200 cards (the card just before 6200
came out), and one of those, I have to point an 80mm fan at the heatsink
of the video card, to keep it cool. A fanless card can give you quiet
operation,
as long as the heatsink is effective enough for the heat load. (I bolt a
wooden
paint stirrer stick to a PCI slot cover, and suspend the 80mm fan with
nylon
wraps to keep it pointed at the video card
)
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-130-452-S01?$S640W$
You can see here, an example of a recent Nvidia driver download.
Clicking the "Supported Products" tab shows 6200, 6200 Turbocache and
the like, are still listed. (You don't really want Turbocache cards,
because when gaming, they can steal some system memory for textures.)
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_196.21_whql.html
If I didn't value movie playback acceleration (which comes with no
guarantees,
and depends on the player application as well), then a 6200 may be good
enough
for a 1280x1024 monitor. If I wanted a card that I could use to drive a
30" Apple LCD monitor via dual link DVI connector, I'd pick the HD 4650.
For some technical info about AGP selection in general, you can try this
page.
But with your 4X slot, I don't expect a problem.
http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html
Have fun,
Paul