I recently replaced an old AGP Ati x850 pro GPU in my computer with a beefier HD3850.
I had the X850 coupled to a HR-03 and with a silent fan it barely ever reached 50 degrees and did that silently.
This is an old high end directX9 / SM 2.0b card but it still enabled me to play Oblivion at 1440x900 at decent framerates and games like Portal in the Orange Box ran pretty much maxed out. I replaced it because i could not run Bioshock (SM3 mandatory for that one). It is not high end anymore but i guess it would still be much better than the 9250. Apart from the SM3, the X850 is somewhat equivalent to a 7600GT on the NVidia scale.
When i tried Ubuntu, compiz could be enabled after a bit of tinkering with drivers and ran pretty well.
I think i would keep the HR-03 but i might consider getting rid of the X850 itself if it suits your needs and are ready to change the now-replaced stock cooling solution.
Best of all i am located in Montreal.
Do your research on the card and tell me if you're interested.
Otherwise, AGP solutions are difficult to find if you want to be able to play games. Most AGP cards you will find in IT stores are either too old, not powerful enough and/or overpriced. Before DX10 cards came out, the X1950 pro or the 2600XT were considered the cards to get your hands on but nowadays they are almost impossible to find or sold at higher prices than even the latest AGP cards like the HD3850 which can be found around $200 now. A bit lower-powered are the Nvidia 7600GT/7800GS/7X00 series but i haven't seen such cards for a long time on the market except the lowest-end versions. To check what might be available in MTL stores, there is always
www.infoprix.ca
So it all comes down to what you need and how much money you are prepared to invest in your computer.
