Video card advice

Geodd · Post by **Geodd** » 2006-11-19 12:03pm

So the other day my trusty Radeon 9800 pro died an awful death well ahead of schedule. I wasn't really planning on buying a new card until I built my next computer, which I can't afford to do right now, but I'm not quite willing to give up on my WoW addiction at this time and the ancient geforce 2 card I managed to unearth just won't cut it.

What are my options for a reasonably cheap agp card that can at least equal the performance of my old one these days? I'm afraid I haven't bothered to keep up with the times an the alphabet soup is quite frankly confusing as hell

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-11-19 12:17pm

In the cheap but powerful area you have two basic options

The 7600GT's from Nvidia(99-140$)
Or the X850's from ATI (100-140$)
But a question comes to mind, are you running AGP still?

Geodd · Post by **Geodd** » 2006-11-19 12:32pm

Yes, I'll need an AGP card, no PCI-e slot on the motherboard which is why this incident is so annoying. I was planning on a new motherboard + cpu sometime next year and a new video card to round it out.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-11-19 02:00pm

X850 Pro or 7600 GS should fit the bill at about $120-140 from Newegg. The X850 will be faster, but the 7600 GS is newer and supports more features.

If that's too rich for your blood, maybe a 6600 GT if you can find one.

EDIT: Be careful, though. Both those cards are also available in PCI-E, so make sure you're getting the AGP version.

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2006-11-19 02:01pm

you can get an Nvidia 6800 for less than a hundred bucks (if you can wait till friday you might get a special on one for around fifty)

That will do most anything you ask of it decently well until you go for the full upgrade

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-11-19 02:07pm

If you're talking about the 6800 XT, that's a perfectly good option as long as you're not expecting it to be much faster than your 9800 Pro was. Where did you see it for $50, though?

Geodd · Post by **Geodd** » 2006-11-19 03:52pm

Thanks guys, the 7600 GS seems to fit my needs and some snooping around on the local shops webpages shows that they have it in stock so I can pick it up at my leisure

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2006-11-19 10:49pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:If you're talking about the 6800 XT, that's a perfectly good option as long as you're not expecting it to be much faster than your 9800 Pro was. Where did you see it for $50, though?

A local computer store had one on special not to long ago. I imagine on black Friday you might be able to find comparable prices.

and if he wasn't thinking of upgrading until next year anyway then it seems a 6800 would work. But if Geodd has already settled on the (admirable) 7600 thats fine too. I'm just a poor college student prone to go with the cheapest option,