i had forgotten about the 6600's.
i think that's what i'm gonna do.
like i said above, i'm not *too* interested in graphics performance, more for cheapness.
as far as cooling goes, i have a VF900 that has lost it's home, searching for a new one. so that'll do...assuming compatibility isnt a problem.
this rig doesnt do anything pretty much but bot in lineage 2. it's an ingame bot, running 2 instances minimum. that's it. the 9700 works just fine for it's purposes, but i want a new card capable of taking the video card fan i'm gonna give it. and it has to be PCI-E, cause i'm changing out the motherboard as well to whatever is cheapest and available at frys.