Help buying a new GFX card

[bitrix]

My old ATi Radeon 9600XT have almost broken down and I need a new card, but I have no idea what to buy as I don't know much about hardware. My pricerange is... well, the prices vary a lot from Denmark and other countries, but it's something like 150 USD/130 euro. (Or in the pricerange of the cards posted below)

My current specs are:
Pentium4 2.6 GHz
512 DDR RAM
ATi Radeon 9600 XT
Port: AGP

No, not a supercomputer but it works... almost.

I've already looked on these cards:
(Yes, yes I know. It's a danish website with danish text, but the specs are the same and it shouldn't be to hard to figure )
XFX GeForce 6600 GT, http://edbpriser.dk/listprices.asp?ID=153767
Inno3D GeForce 6600, http://edbpriser.dk/Listprices.asp?ID=146380
Sapphire Hybrid X700, http://www.edbpriser.dk/Listprices.asp?ID=139113
Club-3D GeForce 6600GT, http://www.edbpriser.dk/Listprices.asp?ID=115510
Sapphire RADEON X800 GT, http://www.edbpriser.dk/Listprices.asp?ID=171730

Any ideas or other suggestions? What should I buy?

Only requirement is it should be able to run BF2 smoothly

[TechZ]

Either a top of the line 6600GT, plain 6800, or a X800 based card.

[Overheat]

I didn't realise that the X800 GT was available in AGP - that is definately the best of the bunch, no questions - go for that.

[Kip_6666]

I'd go with the x800GT too, its a tad better than the rest, but I have no idea at what price, your funny currency means nothing to me and i'm not oing to work out what it is.

A 6800le isn't a bad card either for the money.

[Raheel]

I jut bought an nVidia 6600 LE for my pc..... since your pc is better than mine, you should go for the GTs...(6600 or 6800)

[bitrix]

The thing about the X800GT is this

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2540&p=3

And I play a lot BF2 so that's important. So I think I'll go with a 6600GT with 256 GDDR3 RAM.

[AxlxA]

I have a 6600GT and i love it. 128mb but i only have a 4x agp mobo.


If you can, try to get a 6600GT 256mb.

Dont get the 6600 regular gpus because they are not even close to as good as 6600gt.

As for x800, aren't they a bit pricey? I'm never an ATI fan though i own an all in wonder pro 128.

[jayjaya29]

Don't know if you want to wait, but they are coming out with the smoking fact and very popular 6800GS in AGP flavor next week. They have already phased out the 6800 plain AGP to replace with the 6800GS. I am going to wait for the GS to go below 200 bucks and then I will pick it up.

The key to buying an AGP card here is to get the best you can get, becuase of the shift to PCIe, the amount of newer and faster AGP cards in the future is going to decrease.

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by jayjaya29

Don't know if you want to wait, but they are coming out with the smoking fact and very popular 6800GS in AGP flavor next week. They have already phased out the 6800 plain AGP to replace with the 6800GS. I am going to wait for the GS to go below 200 bucks and then I will pick it up.

Do you know how much the GS will be when it's released?

[jayjaya29]

When it retails next week, it will start out at $250. I think it will go down a bit in 2 weeks, and maybe you could pick it up cheap after the new year possibly. If not, then I predict it should be below $200 by March, but I will probably be wrong.

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/5207/


I was going to get an XFX 6800 for X-mas, but Newegg doesn't have them anymore after they sold out, as well as ZipZoomFly. I think I will just wait till I can get a good deal on the GS. It is supposed to be a fantastic card, and it is native AGP, no PCIe conversion.

[AxlxA]

$200 is rather pricey for me.

My next comp will have PCI-E so i wont have to bother with these AGP expensive stuff again.

[jayjaya29]

Originally Posted by AxlxA

$200 is rather pricey for me.

My next comp will have PCI-E so i wont have to bother with these AGP expensive stuff again.

PCIe really is the way to go nowadays, I just wished that they industry didn't make the shift as soon as it did. AGP still has a lot of momentum going for it, but as soon as they came out with the nForce 4 mobo's with PCIe, the shift was made. Gah.

[fordsierra4x4]

6600GT without question. It surpasses anything that ATI has to offer in this price bracket.

[jeffy777]

Have nVidia improved there fans? Becasue both of the nVidia cards that I have had in the past ended up with fans that sounded awful after a fer months. I've been using ATI cards for the past couple years, but I'm thinking about switching.

[AxlxA]

fans are made by the card manufacturers themselves. So for example, my geforce 6600gt 128mb was made by leadtek, model A6600GT TDH, suppose to have an awesome cooling set up.

They made the fan that's pretty bag on it, and have a heat sink that shapeed around the fan. hard to describe. But i read reviews saying XFX and EVGA makes pretty good fan set ups for the cards.

[swek]

Hmm, all the fans of my previous Radeon cards (8500, 9500pro and 9800) have been developing a loud noise after half a year.

While my current Nvidia card isn't old enough to give a definitive answer regarding the issue, I can assure you that the build quality of the fan seems far superior compared to the ATI products I have had.

[bitrix]

Yeah, my 9600XT is have become very loud in the past months too. I've had for almost 3 years though.

Anyways, a XFX 6600GT have been purchased and will be delivered this Friday

[Raheel]

congrats dude...

[AxlxA]

congrats, actually i'm thinking of upgrading mobo/cpu and therefore i may as well upgrade to the PCI-E board since most new cards are out in PCIE first.

[graham_h]

some 6800 bargains on e-bay