Upgrade from Radeon 9600

[Euchrestalin]

Want to upgrade from a Radeon 9600 256mb AGP. Don't want to break the bank either. Any thoughts?

 

[f4phantom2500]

what's the rest of the system? what psu? what games will it be playing? what's the budget? any concerns like heat or clearance (will a 2-slot solution be ok)?

 

[Euchrestalin]

Asus A7N8x-X Socket A (462), AMD XP 2500+, 2x512 MB DDR-400, Samsung 160gb HDD + WD 320 HDD, Antec 350W SmartPower PSU. Looking to spend less than $100 and will primarily be playing BF2. Current GPU is already 2-slots only other concern is I would prefer to have a quiet fan but this is secondary to performance.

 

[Modular]

6600gt

 

[Dazed and Confused]

For the money get this Nvidia 6800XT for $60 shipped. It has 800mhz 256bit memory and a 350mhz GPU with 8 pipes. It also has a decent SlienX HSF that should let you OC the GPU over 400mhz easy.

Oh, it's fast and quiet and uses less power than a 6600GT With the NV40 core theres also a slight chance to unlock more pipes/shaders

 

[Modular]

I have to disagree. The 6600gt has 8 pipes, faster GPU, and faster memory speeds (not to mention that the 6800xt is crippled by DDR video ram, not even DDR 2

The 6600gt can be found on eBay or the FS section here for $30 - $50.

 

[coolpurplefan]

Geforce 7600 GS $93
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814127219

Radeon X1650 Pro $97 ($87 after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814161053

You can see some benchmarks here:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/...5&model2=717&chart=275

You can see here these two cards are about the same in Battlefield 2142 but they're both around 50% faster than the 6600 GT.

Just some ideas anyway. You can see the 6600 GT at 20 fps, the Geforce 7600 GS at 28 fps, the X1650 Pro at 30 fps, the X1650 XT at 46 fps and the X1950 Pro at 61 fps.

EDIT: Gee, a lot of odd comments on the newegg customer reviews.

 

[mruffin75]

I went from a 9600XT to a X800GT, and even that was a big difference... I wouldn't get the X1650 Pro.. I've got a X1600 Pro which isn't much different, and that gets creamed by the X800GT..

 

[CrystalBay]

This is your best bet 116.00 after R very fast agp card

 

[Modular]

Originally posted by: CrystalBay
This is your best bet 116.00 after R very fast agp card

Oh wow. That's probably one of the better deals for AGP, that or the 7600gt agp card. But the problem may be that he doesn't have that fast of a processor, not to mention the fact that the PSU he has is only 350 watts. Something tells me that it won't cut it with the Ati card.

 

[CrystalBay]

Oh , sure it will and smoke a 7600gt at the same time ..What Kinf of 350 PSU do he have ?

 

[coolpurplefan]

He said it's an Antec. According to the extreme outervision PSU calculator (which some people believe over-estimates the power you need), the X1650 Pro uses 45 watts and the 7600 GS only uses 28 watts? These numbers seem insane. I'm not sure if that's correct or not.

I just did a quick google search and found various things, don't have the time to sort this out right now but it appears the 7600 GS is the lowest power.

EDIT: OK, lol, I just did another search and found both require 350 watt PSU. Although for the X1650 Pro, it said fully loaded system. So, with the Antec, he should be safe.

But, I would say those are the minimum I would use though. However, it's great to make an old machine last longer. The X1650 Pro would be the one I would choose because if you use the K-Lite mega codec pack for videos, you can't use the latest video drivers with the Nvidia. I know because I have a Geforce 6600 in one machine using driver 84.21 (best usable choice I had) and an X1650 XT in another machine. With my X1650 XT, I can use the latest driver and things work well. I just downloaded a bunch of demanding video game demos and used them with no problem (even though one wouldn't install, haven't looked into that to solve it). Note that the XT is more powerful than the Pro version but like I said, if it's an old machine you don't have much of a choice.

 

[mazeroth]

Please keep into consideration the 2500+ CPU this will be paired with.

 

[coolpurplefan]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: mazeroth
Please keep into consideration the 2500+ CPU this will be paired with.</end quote></div>

I know. I've had an Athlon 3200+ socket A with a Ti4200 and I can tell you when I went with an Athlon 3400+ (Newcastle) and an X700 Pro, it was night and day.

I'd rather jump off a cliff than to settle with a socket A these days.

Look, right now some socket 754 and socket 939 CPUs are so damn cheap it might be worth it to upgrade that as well. A single core 4000+ socket 939 at a place like Compuvest is pretty cheap. At least you'd be able to survive. I have a single core 4000+ and an X1650 XT. With high settings, I can play BF2 at 1024x768 (see no difference in image at 1600x1200 so I went back to 1024x768) at around 60 to 90 frames per second. Well, that's offline with 2GB of RAM. But I think some people said 2GB of RAM is only needed if you wanted to play online anyway. So, you're looking at re-using the RAM, replacing video card and mobo/cpu and there's a way better deal. Of course, it costs more money but it could work with teh Antec 350 watt PSU.

EDIT: I'm just flying some ideas around but look at this...
http://www.compuvest.com/Description.jsp?iid=464501
http://www.compuvest.com/Description.jsp?iid=472651
New CPU and motherboard for around $110 US. Actually, I know you can probably get some better deals elsewhere.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131069
Here's a deal at newegg that only costs $75 US.
The only unfortunate thing is the cost of the X1650 XT is almost the same at the X1950 Pro but the thing is, you likely can't use an X1950 Pro with a 350 watt PSU. However, I just did a search for the X1650 XT and there were some pretty negative comments for a couple of them like: "overheats" or whatever. So, I could recommend mine which is sold at Tigerdirect...
http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...pNo=2687690&CatId=1560
or, case-mod.com where I ordered mine...
http://www.case-mod.com/his-h1...pcie-256mb-p-2471.html

I've ordered from both companies (Tigerdirect.CA and case-mod.com) so I know they're reliable. The price is lower at Tigerdirect.COM but at Tigerdirect.CA the price is way different. Don't know why they did that at all. It's a good thing case-mod.com ships to Canada (and their shipping cost to Canada is good. They even charge under $3 US shipping to Canada for an order of some small cables. But the shipping for the video card I think was something like $8 US.)

Anyway, bottom line is, you could get a substantial upgrade for just over $200 and it would work with the Antec 350 watt. Antec is a brand many people like and should handle those components.