Fastest reasonable video card for an Athlon XP 3000+?

[5to1baby1in5]

System Spec's:

Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton) OC'd to 3200+ speed
2 GB dual chanel RAM (CAS 2.5)
Geforce 6600 GT ----> Upgrade to ??? Edit: AGP
Windows XP Pro.
Parallel HDD's

I would like to upgrade my video card, but don't want to buy something that will outpace my processor by so much that the CPU becomes a bottleneck.

What would be a good matched video card for this CPU?

Are there any guides out there for this? I already searched for the answer and couldn't find it.

Thx

 

[dguy6789]

That system would be perfect with a Geforce 7800GS.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I think you'd do well to look for a relatively inexpensive used 6800GT/X800XT/X850XT...you should be able to get any of these for under $200 these days (I have a 6800GT and I know my resale value is crap at this point ), and they'll be almost as fast as the more expensive 7800GS (and easily twice as fast as your 6600GT, maybe more depending on the situation). In fact, the X850XT even beats the 7800GS in some benchmarks...

 

[BassBomb]

i hate to say it but i think your 6600GT is still slightly bottlenecked by the cpu

there is no worthwile upgrade , if u have to it would be 6800GT/GS all that will give you is a resolution bump or a AA bump... if neither a good FPS bump

 

[Ika]

Looks like an old 6800GT/X800XT/X850XT/X850Pro would be a good match for your system. Is your system PCIe or AGP?

And sorry to sort of hijack your thread, but does increasing graphics quality put any burden on the CPU?

 

[Fox5]

I'm running an x800xt on my xp 3200+ (with 11-3-3-3 timings so it's a bit faster than stock) and it is a very noticable improvement over the 6600gt I had, which was a decent improvement over the 9700pro I had. Don't worry about having a video card that's to fast for your system, just go for bang for the buck, most likely an x800xt or x850xt.

 

[Munky]

Increasing graphics options like shader detail and resolution puts more stress on the graphics card, and has no effect on the cpu. And modern games tend to stress out the graphics card much more than the cpu when all the graphics options are enabled, so even an x850xt would be a good match for the AXP if you found one for ~$200. Otherwise try to get something like a x800gto or a 6800gs for around $160-180.

 

[dfloyd]

I agree with most all above, anything from the X800XT plus to a 6800GT and up would be great. I would seriously pass on the 7800 GS, its all marketing as it is not even close to fast enough compared to the previous cards to justify its high price. (You can about buy two of the others for the cost of one of those, and the 7800GS is beat in several benchmarks by the 6800GT, the X800XL, and as well as all the cards that are above those in those series.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: munky
Increasing graphics options like shader detail and resolution puts more stress on the graphics card, and has no effect on the cpu. And modern games tend to stress out the graphics card much more than the cpu when all the graphics options are enabled, so even an x850xt would be a good match for the AXP if you found one for ~$200. Otherwise try to get something like a x800gto or a 6800gs for around $160-180.

I agree with this. I have a 6800GT @ ultra paried with my AXP 2500+ @ 3200+ in my secondary machine and it does a great job gaming, even with modern games. I can't max out details on my 1680x1050 monitor anymore but running in 1024x768 you can really jack up the eye candy and still have a very smooth gameplay.

I would seriously look at a 6800GT/GS as a great upgrade option. I have not owned any ATI cards in that generation so I can't really comment on them but munky would know which ones work well (as stated in his post.)

-spike

 

[Fraggable]

Hey I'm running a 1800XT @stock with my 3000+ and while it may be holding it back a bit, I still get very impressive rates out of it with Oblivion and BF2. As a matter of fact, then next time I upgrade I plan to get an 1800 CrossFire card instead of a CPU. Why? Because of Conroe, and dual core isn't utilized much by games yet. Someday I'll get to OCing the crap out of my CPU.

 

[cubeless]

see the review of the hot evga 7800gs...

7800gs

this card would take that system a ways into the future at 1280x1024... but i haven't seen a price on it...

 

[RussianSensation]

$165 X800GTO

or

6800GT/Ultra/GS, X800XT, X850Pro, X800XL, X850XT/PE will all do. Just get a card for less than $200 from any of these.

 

[5to1baby1in5]

Thanks for the info all.

My video card is AGP.

It appears that adding an 6800GT/X800XT/X850XT/X850Pro would give me a good boost in eye candy (resolution/AA) with good frame rates which is definatly what I am after.