ATI Radeon 1600Pro 256MB / 512MB

[Penguisher]

I have an nVidia BFG Geforce FX 5600 256MB AGP 8x VGA card, and my mobo (Soyo Dragon KT400 Ultra Black Edition) supports the AGP Pro cards. I definitely need to upgrade, and am on a fairly tight budget. What I need to know, is, how does my current card fair against the ATI Radeon x1600PRO 256MB and the 512MB. There's about $50 difference between the 2 ATI's, but I need 2 know if it's worth it. I'm a noob here, but some of u may know me from the MaxPC forums as JC's Demon Slayer, I dunno. Any help would be massively appreciated. Thx. Here's my full setup, if it'll help any: AMD Athlon XP 2400+ @ 2.0 Ghz, 2x 1GB DDR400 Supertalent RAM, BFG Geforce FX 5600 256MB, Creative SBAudigy2ZS, 1x 80GB ATAHDD, 1x 120GB ATAHDD, 1x ATA combo drive, Soyo Dragon KT400 Ultra Black Edition, MSWINXP Pro SP2. BTW, yes, I realize my CPU's a bit of a small bottleneck, but it's not worth another $100+ to get an Athlon XP 3200+ OEM CPU from ebay.

 

[BernardP]

There is little or no gaming performance difference between 256 Mb and 512 Mb memory for the 1600 Pro, as the card is not powerful enough to fill this buffer memory. You would be better advised to keep the 50$ in your pocket and go with the 256 Mb memory.

As an alternative, you can try to spend the additional 50 $ on a card with a more powerful core, as the 1600 Pro would just be barely adequate.

Others here might have suggestions for good value in AGP cards.

 

[TheRyuu]

7600GS FTW (For The Win)

 

[Nightmare225]

How much money do want to spend at max?

 

[Coogcheese]

This is pretty close to the decision I'm getting advice on in another thread. (good, decent priced agp card to exend the life of my system). I'm looking the the $120-150 range.

I've ruled out the x1600 altogether as it looks like the x800xl or x850 pro are better cards...or maybe the evga 7600 gs agp card (supports SM 3.0...but do I need it).

 

[Penguisher]

To be honest, I just need to be able to play Quake 4 with no problem. My current 5600/256MB is fine, except for the dynamic lighting. About every 4 seconds, I get lines that run up and down my screen, but only in areas where DL is active. I also have an issue with HALO on campaign, but that's my CPU that's a bottleneck. I want to spend as little as possible, but with the best performance gain as possible. I was hoping that a pro card may help me a little more. Honestly, I prefer nVidia, as admittedly, I am a fanboy. However, I just wanna extend my current rig's life as much as possible. Here's the games I play: HALO, Warhammer40K (and wanna get Warhammer Mark of Chaos when it's released), Doom 3, HL2, Quake4, UT2K4, all GTA's, Postal2, C&C series, and some older games, such as RUNE. When I can afford it, I'll build a new Next-Gen Rig for Higher-Ended gaming, but I'm kinda po' 4 now. Thx again. BTW, how come I've never seen any 7600GT AGP's? Are the GS' better anyway?

 

[Coogcheese]

mwmorth is pointing me to the 6800GS.

I found this review/info and now maybe I will go that route...price depending of course.

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=1856&cid=3&pg=1

 

[Penguisher]

That 7600GS' HS plate cover is wicked! I love the way it looks, but would rather take the 6800GS. Thx 4 the info, but I wonder if those numbers are the same for the AGP versions, as they compared the PCI-E ones.

 

[BernardP]

If you choose a 7600GS, don't take one with the reference passive cooling (such as the PCI-E model from MSI above) as they run very hot. Try to get one with a fan, such as these:

MSI

Asus

The one from Asus is available on Newegg HERE

The 7600GS is a midrange card. The 6800GS and 7600GT can be viewed as upper midrange.

An AGP 6800GS is clearly more powerful than the 7600GS, but more expensive. It will also draw much more power from your P/S

Also not a bad idea to search for a performance bargain in the ATI highline X800/X850 models. I would not lose sleep about Shader 3.0 vs 2.0 if the price is good enough.