VGA upgrade

[oynaz]

My friend has asked me to help him choose a new VGA card. He currently has a FX5500 (or something close), and that is of course not enough to run the new games.
He has a budget of about $150. Any suggestions?
Bear in mind that we are Danish, so while good offers at American retailers or websites are nice, we really cannot use them

 

[oynaz]

OK, as far as I can see, the options are:

Radeon X1600 Pro
Radeon X1650 Pro
Geforce 7600GS

Any comments?

 

[40sTheme]

Around $150, i'm pretty sure those are the best choices. Gotta verify real quick though.
EDIT: 7600GT is around that price range as well. Pretty sure that is the best one near that price range.

 

[spaceclamjr]

try for an X800GTO, very overclockable card
stock its 400mhz core, 980mhz memory
ive got mine to 580mhz core, 1.3ghz memory

 

[regnez]

Originally posted by: spaceclamjr
try for an X800GTO

:thumbsup:

EDIT: The x1300xt is the same thing as the x1600 Pro, so that may put it on your list of cards to consider. The 7600gt is quite a bit more powerful than all the cards you have listed, by the way.

 

[thegimp03]

x850xt possibly...

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: regnez

EDIT: The x1300xt is the same thing as the x1600 Pro, so that may put it on your list of cards to consider

:Q You're right, that's just crazy... But, the 1650pro is (possibly) a different chip (80nm instead of 90), and at least comes with higher stock clocks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R520#Chipset_table

 

[Farmer]

If you want, look for used ATI X8xx and Geforce 68xx. Tons of people have been dumping them for the X1950Pro recently, and they are great cards, much faster than an FX5500.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Farmer
If you want, look for used ATI X8xx and Geforce 68xx. Tons of people have been dumping them for the X1950Pro recently, and they are great cards, much faster than an FX5500.

Yeah, most vanilla 6800 AGP cards can have the disabled pipelines and a vertex shader unlocked using RivaTuner so that the card is almost GT...but only almost GT. The GPU and memory speeds can't quite get there when overclocking. But a good card if you can find one.

 

[oynaz]

OK, thanks for the replies

 

[AstroGuardian]

I doubt that an AGP card can cope with the latest games. I would go for the GF 7600GT. It's good performer but never tested it with AGP.
Also the X1650Pro is ner with performance.

 

[oynaz]

Hmm, his budget can actually bear a X1950Pro or 7900GS. Appearently, the 7900GS is cheaper in Denmark. Is the 7900GS the way to go?