Which card to get? Bit confused!

[Bananadude]

Till now, I've been pretty much set on the Gainward GF4 Ti4600 (not the Golden Sample version) which i can get for a shade under £200 (I'm in the UK). That's my limit. I know if i was in the US I wouldn't have any problem, but we Brits are stuck with highly inflated prices on graphics hardware.

Anyway, i've read some stuff that suggests these 4600 cards aren't all they're cracked up to be, and only marginally faster than the lower GF4 models.

I'd like to get other people's opinions on this, just so i know i'm making the right choice, and not spending extra cash unnecessarily. Although my budget is £200, I don't feel a desperate need to spend it all, so if i can get something just as good (or better!) for less, then great.

What about the new line of x8 AGP cards? The 128Mb Asus x8AGP V9280STVD Superfast 600MHz Ti4200 Tvout/DVI (£185) caught my eye. I know everyone loves the Radeons, but the better ones (9700 etc.) are really out my price range. The only exception to this is a model called Sapphire, which is cheaper (£199) due to a 275Mhz core (50Mhz less than the Pro) and 540Mhz DDR memory (80Mhz less than the Pro). Not sure about this.

I'll be running this on an Asus P4S8X mbd, 2.4GHz Intel CPU (533FSB), with 512mb RAM.

All advice very much appreciated. Thanks.

(P.S - This is separate to my earlier post about cheaper cards - that was for something different)

 

[Lonyo]

Don't know if you've thought of this, but how about not getting an nVidia card at all?
damned good, £200, card
I know it's on the edge of your budget, and shipping will take it over, but it would be worth the extra cost.

Sapphire Radeon 9700 Atlantis 128MB
AGP, ATI 9700, DVI, TV-Out, Retail

That's the card, the 9700 is better than the 4600 by a significant amount, and if you get the overclockable BIOS then you will be able to get very good speed for not that much more cost than the price of the Ti 4600 you were looking at.
I think almost everyone would agree that a retail 9700 is much better than a retail Ti 4600, especially if they cost the same amount.

 

[Dacalo]

i have a radeon 9700 and it is spectacualr.

Awesome image quality, color saturation, and great 3d performance in games.

 

[Bananadude]

So the fact that it's clocked lower than the Pro version is not such a bad thing? 275Mhz core (50Mhz less than the Pro) and 540Mhz DDR memory (80Mhz less than the Pro).

Any reviews of this anywhere do you know? Lots of reviews of the Pro version i found, but not this one.

I'm definitely swaying towards a Radeon though, as everyone raves about them.

 

[Lonyo]

The Radeon whoops the Ti 4600. If you have the choice between them then the 9700 is the way to go. It's about 20% faster I'd say, you don't need benchmarks. I'd kill for a 9700, and I have a Ti4400.