Need help picking a mid range DX10 Videocard

[Rustican]

I'm trying to pick out a decent midrange video card that's DirectX10. So either a ATI 2600XT or a Nvidia 8600GTS.

I want to use the card for casual gaming and to watch HD content if i ever get enough money to get large flat panel.

My current rig is Dell 351 desktop machine running on interagted graphics with with the following specs:
AMD X2 4400+
2 Gigs Ram
Vista Home OS

The thing I'm worried about is that the Dell power supply my computer has is rated at 300 watts. I'm not sure if that's enough for a midrange card. When i talked to Dell they said that changing out the power supply might not be a good idea since it could affect the internals already in my machine. I guess I'm stuck with 300 watts then. So given that what would be a good card to get for my system?

Cliffs:
Want midrange DX10 card
have 300 watt power supply
what are my options?

 

[cmdrdredd]

is it for gaming purposes? If so neither of those options is worth it.

 

[Rustican]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
is it for gaming purposes? If so neither of those options is worth it.

I want to use the card for casual gaming and to watch HD content.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The 8600GTS is far superior in gaming applications, but neither would be abe to handle much more than 1024x768 with no AA or AF used. Maybe 1280x1024 if you don't need max FPS.

EIther would work well in an HD environment, but I do happen to think that ATI had a better decoder and produces a superior image. Neither are perfect in that area and you'd probably need a trained eye to see the differences.

My vote for 8600GTS.

 

[Munky]

For watching HD content the 2600xt has a better decoder and image quality, see this article. However, for gaming the 8600gts is faster, but not by much. None of these cards have enough gpu power to run DX10 using medium-high resolutions at playable frame rates. If you were't limited by a 300w PSU. I'd strongly recommend the 8800gts 320mb. Unless you upgrade your PSu the 8600gts seems like the better choice, but agian, don't expect great performance in DX10.

 

[Cheex]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
The 8600GTS is far superior in gaming applications, but neither would be abe to handle much more than 1024x768 with no AA or AF used. Maybe 1280x1024 if you don't need max FPS.

EIther would work well in an HD environment, but I do happen to think that ATI had a better decoder and produces a superior image. Neither are perfect in that area and you'd probably need a trained eye to see the differences.

My vote for 8600GTS.

Seconded.

Originally posted by: munky
For watching HD content the 2600xt has a better decoder and image quality, see this article. However, for gaming the 8600gts is faster, but not by much. None of these cards have enough gpu power to run DX10 using medium-high resolutions at playable frame rates. If you were't limited by a 300w PSU. I'd strongly recommend the 8800gts 320mb. Unless you upgrade your PSu the 8600gts seems like the better choice, but agian, don't expect great performance in DX10.

Seconded.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Again the image quality in HD content is close. It's not easy to tell the difference for the average user. I'd take the superior gaming performance in the 8600.