AGP Vid Card Decision

[jonks]

So I have a Dell 4550 [P4 @ 2.6ghz, 640mb]. I just bought the Dell 2001fp (couldn't resist the deal plus I sold my 1703fp for $250, so 🙂

I suppose I'd like to play most games in the lcd's native 1600x1200, but am not exactingly picky (I could barely notice any ghosting on my 25ms 1703fp) so could go for 1280x1024 with pretty much all the goodies on. I'd spend up to about $300 on a new vid card. I currently have a Dell Radeon 9700tx (an oem underclocked non-pro version) which has been ok for UT2k4, but with the advent of Far Cry, HL2 and D3 it can't handle the high resolutions on these new games.

So the vanilla 6800 looks good, but only has 128mb and I hear games based on the Source engine really use the 256mb at 1280 res and higher. My system is 4x AGP so whatever card I buy will not be making the transition to my next system, so I'm hesitant to spend much more. The vaporwhere x800xl agp would be perfect but I don't wanna wait 2+ months (or longer) to enjoy the fruits of my 2001fp. Can the 6800 get the job done? Can the 6600gt? ATI has nothing in this price segment for me right now. Thanks for any input, I've been reading the posts on here for a while and have come to respect the opinions stated.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I imagine you'll probably be fine with the regular 6800 as long as you stick to 1280x1024. Anything faster would probably be held back by your CPU anyway (and the 6800nu might even somewhat).

 

[rise]

well, aside from the 4x agp be careful with that psu, its only listed at 250 watts.

 

[jonks]

 

[jonks]

Actually Dell measures their output of power supplies using a different method than the rest of the industry. Something like average vs maximum. If measured by the same means as everyone else it would be rated at 350 watts. There's plenty about that on the dell forums from moderators there. I currently have 3 harddrives hooked up though so I may need to dump one.

 

[rise]

cool. is the 12v not really 15 amp then?