Need video card advice

pkilway01

Senior member
Jul 5, 2007
236
0
76
Looking for video card advice. Please know before suggesting that I just buy a 8800GTX is that I DO NOT plan on upgrading to Vista until my next pc build (which will include a monitor upgrade at that time) and my budget is $150.

I primarily play Everquest (DX9 game) and my system specs are listed below.

I was looking at these cards, but would be willing to listen to any suggestions or advice.

SAPPHIRE 100196L Radeon X1950PRO 256MB

SAPPHIRE 100196L Radeon X1950PRO 512MB

SAPPHIRE 100196L Radeon X1950XT 256MB

Yes, I am partial to ATI cards. I think they are visually better then NVidia's offerings (or were when I put this system together 2 years ago). When I originally built my system I had a Chaintech 6600GT and was thoroughly underwhelmed by the graphical glitches, stuttering and lack of graphic crispness (and this was supposed to be THE BEST 6600GT card) - so I sold it and bought the Sapphire X800 GTO2 which I was able to unlock and overclock very successfully.

But, is there anything out there better then what I'm current considering? And do I need to be concerned about whether or not my psu can power an X1950XT?

CHENMING 501AWU-F-0 ATX Mid Tower
Tagan TG-480-U01 ATX 480W PSU
DFI nF4-DAGF - Bios A19
AMD Opteron 175
XP-90 Heatsink w/ Arctic Silver 5 & SilentCat 90mm fan
OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR400 (PC 3200)
Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 256MB PCI-E (Modded to 16 Pipes, overclocked to 530 core/580 memory)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
ASUS DRW-1608P IDE DVD Burner
ASUS DVD-E616P3 IDE DVD-ROM
RAID 0 - 2 x Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150
Western Digital Caviar SE 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150
Polyview V17D 2-Tone 17" 10ms LCD Monitor
Linksys WRT54G Wireless G Router
Windows XP Pro SP2

Thanks for all the advice and help in advance.
 

MarcVenice

Moderator Emeritus <br>
Apr 2, 2007
5,664
0
0
Depends on the amps your 12v rail can put out, anything above 20a will probable do just fine. Go with the 1950xt, 256mb, it's on newegg for 150$ish, right ? LOTS of bang for your buck, can't really go wrong with it. Anything less you can buy for under 150$ will see you an improvement over what you have, but not like a x1950xt. And it will run everquest no problem.