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$200 Canadian; Cheap Video Card upgrade

M

Mimesis

Junior Member
Ok, this is an upgrade for an AGP system that is meant to last me playing 'World of Warcraft" for another year or so. Its also the last upgrade i will be making to this computer before i start a new comp as use this as secondary.

Atm using a Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939, with and athlon 64 3500+
using some OCZ value ram (2x512mb) DDR400.

Anyways, looking for a card around $200 canadian, im guess thats ~170? american?

was thinking of:
Asus N6800/TD nVidia GeForce 6800(325 MHz) 512MB DDR2(540 MHz) DVI-I S-VHS and Composite Output AGP 8x Graphics Card

or
Diamond Radeon X1600 Pro / 512MB GDDR2 / AGP 8x / DVI / VGA / TV Out / Video Card

anythoughts on these two boards?
Any suggestions as to any other boards i could get?
i dont have access to Credit card so any "AWESOME DEAL" site that you guys link need to be payable via paypal.

Thanks in advance for your advice!


edit: im using a Celestica radeon 9600xt 256gold edition.
 
maybe look into the fs/ft section for a 6800ultra/x800xtpe or x850xtpe 256MB (don't let the 512MB think those cards are faster) the ones i listed are about as fast as you can get in agp flavor, good luck

also, i wouldn't say this is very cheap upgrade, i was expecting you to say you wanted to play some game @ 1920x1440 with all the eye candy on a $50 card 🙂 you may want to edit the title so people don't overlook it because of this thought.....
 
Unfortunately you're not going to find very much for the AGP selection. What vid card do you have now so that we know to give you a good suggestion above what you already have?

If you had to, you could probably find a good 939pin A64 board with PCI-Ex for not too much cash.. and then you could buy a decent vid card which would be current and probably be faster with less cost.

If you are stuck on AGP, then I know I did see Future Shop have a deal on the X800XL/XT AGP cards a week or so ago for around $139 Canadian. You might want to check out their flyer cause they've been having deals like that on cards lately, I think it's to get rid of some of their stock cause they've had like half price sales for their cards lately (even though it's not worth twice that cost but at $129/139 it's not too bad of a deal for an AGP card).
 
ok thanks i was thinking of going with 512mb because world of warcraft (the only game i play) is very ram intensice (system ram) and i figured it might be ram intensive in terms of graphics as well (limitless numbers of characters on screen at any time).

You guys are saying i should stick with the faster cards even if they have 256mbs?
 
Originally posted by: Mavrick007
Unfortunately you're not going to find very much for the AGP selection. What vid card do you have now so that we know to give you a good suggestion above what you already have?

If you had to, you could probably find a good 939pin A64 board with PCI-Ex for not too much cash.. and then you could buy a decent vid card which would be current and probably be faster with less cost.

If you are stuck on AGP, then I know I did see Future Shop have a deal on the X800XL/XT AGP cards a week or so ago for around $139 Canadian. You might want to check out their flyer cause they've been having deals like that on cards lately, I think it's to get rid of some of their stock cause they've had like half price sales for their cards lately (even though it's not worth twice that cost but at $129/139 it's not too bad of a deal for an AGP card).
Click to expand...


i think i am stuck agp at the moment, i dont have the cash to buy a new mobo and get an upgrade on.
Also im pretty sure i want my next mobo upgrade to be amd2 with ddr2 and sli capable, not something i can afford atm.

the x800 is only 128mb version, while it may be faster, i dont think i would get the results im looking for in world of warcraft.
 
This probably isn't what you want to hear, but if you are just biding yourself over for one year, keep what you have. I got a 9600 Pro($105 CDN) last summer to bide me over until I got a new system (turned out this happened just last Christmas). Thinking it would save me money, all it did was restrict my motherboard upgrade options down to one board. Also, that card was used for barely half a year and is now sitting in a box at the bottom of my bookshelf.

You should consider Mavrick007's suggestion and just get a new board. All AGP cards are pretty much overpriced and obsolete. Your Ram and Processor are still great and will be for another year or so.

You can get a 939 for less than $100 CDN and a new 7600GT goes for as little as $200(CDN) now.

Check out: Text
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Originally posted by: Mimesis
Originally posted by: Mavrick007
Unfortunately you're not going to find very much for the AGP selection. What vid card do you have now so that we know to give you a good suggestion above what you already have?

If you had to, you could probably find a good 939pin A64 board with PCI-Ex for not too much cash.. and then you could buy a decent vid card which would be current and probably be faster with less cost.

If you are stuck on AGP, then I know I did see Future Shop have a deal on the X800XL/XT AGP cards a week or so ago for around $139 Canadian. You might want to check out their flyer cause they've been having deals like that on cards lately, I think it's to get rid of some of their stock cause they've had like half price sales for their cards lately (even though it's not worth twice that cost but at $129/139 it's not too bad of a deal for an AGP card).
Click to expand...


i think i am stuck agp at the moment, i dont have the cash to buy a new mobo and get an upgrade on.
Also im pretty sure i want my next mobo upgrade to be amd2 with ddr2 and sli capable, not something i can afford atm.
Click to expand...

I hear ya there, I'm waiting for a big upgrade soon too and I'll be moving from my AGP system over to either Conroe or AM2.

I had a TI4400 128meg card and it played WoW fine for a year while I was playing it, and then I stopped playing and have a 6800nu 128meg card now and it works fine with all my games. I don't get the max out of all games, but WoW is not as intensive as some. I find that system ram is more important for WoW cause even if you have everything cranked up or down, it can still get chuggy if you happen to be in IF or another area with lots of action on screen at a time.

What are you running for a vid card right now? You might not even need to upgrade your vid card if you're just playing WoW cause it will only get so good with the components you have already.
 
Originally posted by: Imp
This probably isn't what you want to hear, but if you are just biding yourself over for one year, keep what you have. I got a 9600 Pro($105 CDN) last summer to bide me over until I got a new system (turned out this happened just last Christmas). Thinking it would save me money, all it did was restrict my motherboard upgrade options down to one board. Also, that card was used for barely half a year and is now sitting in a box at the bottom of my bookshelf.

You should consider Mavrick007's suggestion and just get a new board. All AGP cards are pretty much overpriced and obsolete. Your Ram and Processor are still great and will be for another year or so.
Click to expand...


i realize that why parts are nice, my plan is actually as such, get an almost top agp card to last me a year, and when i year hits im making a full new computer and keeping this one as auxiliary. As i mentioned above i also want to change sockets and ram types, meaning i cant just by a new mobo and use what i have atm.

Anyone else with some suggestions.
 
im running a 9600xt 256, which i find to be very sluggish, and as i said to the previous poster, this vid card is the end of the line as far as upgrading this computer before i start on a new one, so id like to make it good for around 200 dollars.
 
Originally posted by: Mimesis
im running a 9600xt 256, which i find to be very sluggish, and as i said to the previous poster, this vid card is the end of the line as far as upgrading this computer before i start on a new one, so id like to make it good for around 200 dollars.
Click to expand...

i here what you are saying and was just in your situation. i decided to sit out the ddr2 / am2/conroe family as currently and for some time the cpu and ram are not the weak points for gaming, but the gpu. if i need more cpu power i will pick up a x2 3800 and o/c it to ~2.4G and i will b good to go for some time, including video editing. that said i picked up the current m/b and gpu in my sig and moved up from a x800xtpe.

still, look for the 6800gt/ultra and the x800/x850xt/pe and you will be good to go. agp put out a 7800gs in agp and it is like $300USD and barely beats a x850xtpe in benchies, so don't waste your time with it.

i think for this situation the one guy who said somebody was in canada was selling x800xl/x800xt for a $139canadian would be your best bet. a x800xl will be a big step between a 9600xt ( i know when i went from a 9800pro to a x800xtpe it was a major step, just as from my x800xtpe -> x1800xt, got a 50% increase in 3dmark05 each time)

do you live by the border? http://shop.ati.com/searchresults.asp?dept_id=39 has some good prices on the x800xl....
 
Originally posted by: Cruise51
Originally posted by: Hanpan
http://shopati.ca/product.asp?sku=2699206

shipped free using code worldcup1
Click to expand...
:thumbsup: I'd get this.
Click to expand...

That does look good.. I didn't know about ATI's Clearance Center, but that would be the card I would suggest you get... the x800XL VIVO 256meg AGP card for $139 Canadian. That's a great deal and probably the last AGP card you'll ever get.

Edit: Or even the x850 Pro card for $159 there too.. good deals.
 
x850 pro for that price looks to be exactly what im looking for!

thanks alot guys, so much help in these forums.
 
Ati's clearence center is just a part of the ATI online store. They are shipped directly from ATI using FEDEX and are full retail box with full warranty. Don't let the clearance center part fool you these are direct from ATI.
 
Originally posted by: Hanpan
Ati's clearence center is just a part of the ATI online store. They are shipped directly from ATI using FEDEX and are full retail box with full warranty. Don't let the clearance center part fool you these are direct from ATI.
Click to expand...

they are not full "retial box", as they come in a plain white box but do come with a full warranty.

 
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