Video Cards are making my head spin

[fylmz]

I've been reading on this forum for the past hour and I still can't decide what the BEST purchase I can make is. I can spend no more than $240. I'm definantly leaning toward the $6600gt just to save some cash...but dunno which are good brands. On newegg there's like a 50 dollar swing for the same specs..just different brands. Is getting a lower quality 6800 a better choice? All this NU, OC, XT, XL talk is kinda confusing me...I know it's not rocket science but damn it makes hardware enthusiasts pop a vein trying to decide.
If someone could just be blunt and tell me what you would spend the $240 on..it would be a big help. Only company I've ever dealt with is newegg...I would be open to trying other stores...seems newegg's prices are always real competitive.

 

[Darth Farter]

6600gt agp

But some brands seem to have problems right now with overheating/artifacts/crashing in D3D.

BFG should be a really good brand.

 

[Visual]

Well, i'm in pretty much the same spot, only i'm not inna hurry yet... so i'll wait a while longer till i buy.

So far i've decided on a 6800LE which is pretty weak but has good hopes on unlocking additional pipelines so it might even work like a 6800GT for quite less cash...

Are you going for AGP or PCIe? I dont think there are 6600s for AGP yet so I guess you're going PCIe...
The low-end 6800s on the other hand are mainly on AGP, so ... you don't really have much choice once you've picked an interface 🙂

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: Visual
Well, i'm in pretty much the same spot, only i'm not inna hurry yet... so i'll wait a while longer till i buy.

So far i've decided on a 6800LE which is pretty weak but has good hopes on unlocking additional pipelines so it might even work like a 6800GT for quite less cash...

Are you going for AGP or PCIe? I dont think there are 6600s for AGP yet so I guess you're going PCIe...
The low-end 6800s on the other hand are mainly on AGP, so ... you don't really have much choice once you've picked an interface 🙂

6600GT is on sale for quite a time now. I love ASUS but they omly have PCI-E version now (which is OC'd version 550Mhz Core and 1.6ns DDR3 memory)

 

[Xionide]

I have the XFX 6600GT agp and am having zero overheating problems. I can oc this thing and have yet to see this thing go over 55c. Along with the sexy blue pcb and dual dvi I say its a pretty good card. Also you can get it at newegg for around 220 now. Hope this helps.

 

[Home Built]

Just installed a MSI 6600GT AGP. Excellent upgrade from the PNY FX5200 I had.
There were some posts that stated problems with the HS and Fan mounting on the MSI model but I checked mine out real good and found nothing to worry about.

Played FARCRY for 7 hrs straight last night with nothing strange. I do not OCanything.

I paid $119.00 Shipped at Newegg.com

 

[Visual]

I realised there are AGP 6600GTs available already a bit after posting (why do i always google after posting?) but was disappointed to see the prices of the AGP variants some $50 more than the PCIe 🙁 you can get 6600GT on PCIe for under/around $170 while I couldn't find AGP variants cheaper than $220... "Home Built" scored a good deal, or typoed the price above...

I wonder if the cheaper PCIe cards are with lower clock or mem bus width or crippled in any other way... If not, at $170 it's certainly a bargain... and if prices were similar on AGP that'd be the perfect buy.
At over $220 though, I'm begining to wonder... maybe its better to get additional $30 and go with a 6800LE(or normal if found at such low prices)? Anyone know how 6800LEs compare in performance to 6600GTs? If it's similar, and with the chance of unlocking extra pipelines in the LE, I'd go for that rather than 6600GT