Which of these would be best for me

[BigfootNZ]

Hi, got a slight problem with chooseing between either a

Geforce 7600 GT 256 or a Geforce 7800 GS 256

AGP only since my Mother board doesnt support PCI-e (then again the 7800 GS is AGP only anyway ). Straped for cash and recently spent up repairing a blown motherboard and CPU (I know I should of gotten a PCI-e mother board at the time but I'll have to live with that mistake for a while).

Ive done quite a bit of searching and havent been able to come up with a good comparision between the two cards, Toms Hardware Video Card comparision page only lists the Geforce 7800 GS 512 not the 256. But Anandtech shows the 7600 GT with quite a good FPS in its Oblivion Mid Range GPU Performance w/ Bloom Enabled article, but doenst list the 7800 GS in the same article.

My query is which would suit my needs better the 7600 GT or the 7800 GS, the higher core clock speed/ memory data rate or the extra vertex shaders and pixel pipelines. Judging between the variouse performance tests here, Im leaning towards the 7600 GT personaly.

Im primarily doing this for the up coming release of NWN2 (as I'll be possably doing payed work for doing add-on modules or it) Ive been told NWN2 has similar graphical intensity to Oblivion, and with money rather low for this I hope to make right decision.

Any advice is most welcome.

 

[n7]

Welcome to teh forums

7800 GS is a significantly better card.
However, whether it's worth the extra money is something you have to decide on.

I wouldn't recommend spending too much money on an AGP card, as that interface is long dead in the sense that nothing is made for it anymore, & the cards for AGP are so overpriced.

 

[Zebo]

Whats your cpu and ram? You know you might be a lot better off buying a cheap PCIe motherboard ~ $60 and a x1900xt? Totalling out at $300 be be way way faster?

 

[BigfootNZ]

Heh thanks.

CPU is AMD 64 3000+ and I got a 1 gig of ram (Blew the ram I bought originaly for the Mother Board since this MSI is real picky about the brand of Ram it takes, good thing I was able to swap it).

Well I spent around 800$ (thats New Zealand dollars) getting my PC fixed when its mother board and CPU took a nose dive only 5 months ago I went with an AGP motherboard since I thought to myself "Hey I dont need to get a new graphics card any time soon"... yeah right, not to mention it was teh only mother board that would take the CPU I bought, money was and is the main problem.

Aye the AGP cards are rather over priced although here in New Zealand the PCI-e cards seem to be pretty expensive as well compared to the old AGP's. Once this PC has this new card it'll basicly be used untill i get a proper income going once again and can afford to get a new proper set up (Im slowly learning how to build a good one, slowly ). Computer component prices here are nasty, cheapest 7900 GT 256 PCI-e I can find is $470 online, heh and dont get me started on cards like the X1900 XT cheapest one online... $529 and thats just the 256 meg one.

The 7800 GS is $504 (actualy cheaper by $30 than its PCI-e counter part), while the 7600 GT is $348. Then again that extra $150 might mean my PC might last a little longer for what I need it for (untill I can get a completly new one).

To compound the delema my HD started to fail a month ago, havent had any reoccuring problems but its on its way out.

 

[hmorphone]

I'd get the 7600GT and put the rest in your HD replacement fund. I was going to suggest you put the difference in money in the PCI-E motherboard fund, but you better go with the HD replacement fund