It's been way too long.....

[jdurg]

It has been a long, long, long time since I last worked on getting a new video card, but now I've decided that it's been long enough. Nearly five years ago I built my computer from the ground up and it's still working perfectly fine for me. The CPU is plenty fast, the video card works okay, and I have yet to have any real problems. I guess the research I did before building this computer has really paid off well for me.

In recent weeks, I have gone ahead and made a few upgrades. I went and upgraded the hard drive from a 40GB Seagate to a 120 GB Seagate with 8MB cache. (I also sold my old hard drive to a co-worker for twenty bucks). I also just went and upgraded my RAM from 512 megs to one GB and again sold off my old RAM to a co-worker. So In the past week I've tripled my hard drive capacity and doubled my RAM. I've now decided that my video card has to go.

I currently have a GeForce4 Ti-4600 video card and need to upgrade that. I'm not looking for top of the line as I have no intentions whatsoever of upgrading my motherboard. I don't play games all that often, but when I do I want them to look good. (Then again, I thought that Doom3 and Half-Life 2 looks drop dead gorgeous on my system running at 1024x768). I don't want to spend a fortune on a new card, yet at the same time I don't want to cheap out when another ten or twenty bucks could get me something MUCH better. So here's where I stand;

Need an AGP Video Card.
Would like to stay with an nVidia card as that's what I have now, but I'm willing to change if convinced to.
Want something that is compatible with the latest DirectX specs. (My 4600 is definitely not).
Want something that can run games like Doom3 and HL2 @1024x768 with moderately high detail levels.
Want something around $200, but preferably less.

At this point in time, I just have no idea what would be the best fit, as most of the threads I've found at various forums have been discussing PCIe cards or higher end cards, not the mid level like I'm looking for.

Thanks.

 

[Dkcode]

Id buy a vanilla 6800, these things are very cheap.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

ti4600 - good card, unfortunately, like you say, time has caught up with it and it doesnt support alot of things now.

6800NU is a good choice, if you wanna spend even less then i reckon even a 6600GT will see you through. 6800NU may just give you a little more longevity though, with 4 more pipes and double the memory bus width.

can you pick up ATi X800XL's for under $200? i know you can buy them here in the uK for under £200 but i dont know about the US, if you can these are also good cards. though Nvidia will definately triumph more if doom3 is your thing

 

[emilyek]

X800xl is about $250-300

X800GT0 is $200.

6600GT is $125-175

6800 is about $185

X850Pro is $2-300

(The x800gto and x850pro vivo can both be flashed to x850xt which is what im gonna do here in a week or so, I think, since I'm about to upgrade my vid card too.)

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: emilyek
X800xl is about $250-300

X800GT0 is $200.

6600GT is $125-175

6800 is about $185

X850Pro is $2-300

(The x800gto and x850pro vivo can both be flashed to x850xt which is what im gonna do here in a week or so, I think, since I'm about to upgrade my vid card too.)

be sure to post back if you successfully flash! dont forget to bench before and after!

 

[jdurg]

Thanks for the quick replies. From what I gather, it looks like either a GeForce 6600GT or a 6800 would be the better choice for me. As my motherboard kind of limits the data transfer rate anyway, I'm pretty certain that I won't be seeing a huge difference between a 128MB and a 256MB card. I'll have to hit my local Best Buy/Circuit City and see what they have in stock. If I can pick something up from a B&M that would be optimal as I hate having to wait.

 

[Hacp]

6800 with 128 MB of memory.

 

[jdurg]

After reading the replies to this thread I have made my decision and my purchase. I have gone ahead and picked up the eVGA 128MB GeForce 6800 AGP Video Card for $193.00, including shipping. The videocard also comes with a $30.00 mail in rebate, so after all is said and done it will have only cost me $163.00 for the card which is probably the last card I'll be able to get for this current system of mine. If this one can last me as long as my current Ti4600 has lasted, I'll be one happy camper. Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[johnnqq]

x800 vanilla or it's opponent 6800 vanilla
x800 is the better card, but both cards can run half life 2 and only the 6800 runs doom 3 well. x800 will get you more frames in half life 2 than the 6800 will in doom 3. the x800 can be had for as low as $100 ($120ish) and the 6800 for $150ish

 

[Eureka]

6600GT. Otherwise, 6800.

Just as a note, 6600GT will do very well with those games at 1024, however 6800 will give you more flexibility in the future. x800Pro refurb for 180 is also pretty good, but you'll have to check ATi's site to see if they have them.

EDIT: nevermind, good choice with the 6800.

Norm

 

[Cookie Monster]

You do know that the 6800 is based on the NV40 core, hence it can be unlocked to pp16/vs6 card.

 

[jdurg]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
You do know that the 6800 is based on the NV40 core, hence it can be unlocked to pp16/vs6 card.

Yeah, I had been hearing about that and kept that in mind when making my purchase. I'm not really counting on any unlocking in regards to the card, however. I'll give it a try and see if it works, but if not I'm sure it will outperform the living hell out of my current Ti-4600. My 4600 did me good and I was able to make it be worth the $400 I spent on it when I bought it. I think if I ever upgrade to another card, that will be when I build a new system as the newer cards won't be coming out in an AGP form.