Which video card: low to mid range (PCI-E)

[trueimage]

I am building a new system soon, and I'm probably going to go with:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
DFI Lanparty UT Ultra-D (nForce4)
1GB DDR (perhaps add another 1GB if I'm under budget)

I don't play a lot of games, but I do play:

Diablo II
WoW
Unreal Tournament 2004 or whatever is newest, other online fps games

Mainly I do: web, irc, msn, flash mx2004 pro, photoshop, reason 3.0 and some dvd backups

So as you can see, games are not a priority, but I would like to be able to at least play them at a reasonable FPS.

My budget would be approx $150-170 max, which is about the price of a 6600GT 128mb, but if there there are cheaper options that offer similar performance, I'd be happy. I can't seem to find any comparisons between the 6600GT and lower ati and nvidia options.

Also, should I stick with nvidia because of the nForce4 chipset, or is ATI ok?

Thanks for your input!

 

[biostud]

6600GT is the best in that category, I wouldn't go lower if I wanted to game.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

ATI will be fine.

9800 Pros are down to $100-110 now which makes them a good bang-for-the-buck card.

But the 6600GT is in another class. It's just plain an amazing value and offers newer technologies over the 9800 Pro.

The X700 series really is caught in limbo. It's just not even close to being on par with the 6600GT in anything but games optimized for ATI cards, but is still priced within $20 and still lacks many newer technologies the 6600GT possesses. It performs so close to the 9800 Pro, that there's no point even spending the extra $20-30 for the X700 Pro.

 

[trueimage]

so there is nothing lower than the 6600gt in the nvidia lineup either that is close?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: trueimage
so there is nothing lower than the 6600gt in the nvidia lineup either that is close?

Not in terms of power, no. As soon as you go lower than a 6600GT, performance drops like a rock.

 

[LukeMan]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
ATI will be fine.

9800 Pros are down to $100-110 now which makes them a good bang-for-the-buck card.

But the 6600GT is in another class. It's just plain an amazing value and offers newer technologies over the 9800 Pro.

The X700 series really is caught in limbo. It's just not even close to being on par with the 6600GT in anything but games optimized for ATI cards, but is still priced within $20 and still lacks many newer technologies the 6600GT possesses. It performs so close to the 9800 Pro, that there's no point even spending the extra $20-30 for the X700 Pro.

Does he need an AGP card or PCI-E?

If he wants to save money and still be able to play those games, he can look at the 9700pro or a 9800pro. I just recently bought an ATI made Radeon 9700 Pro All in Wonder with all the cords and remote for $80 after shipping for my older computer. The 9700 and 9800pro cards can be got very cheap and yet still have the power to run the newer games at descent settings. Don't expect to break the 200fps barrier with these cards.

For PCI-Express I would go with an OEM x800pro. It doesn't use all 16 pipelines, but performs on par with the 6800gt and x800xl. It(x800pro) can be bought for $180 or so on ebay.

Hell, if you watch closely, you can find an x800xt PCI-E for rock bottom prices like this auction that just ended and I missed out on. =/

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

 

[coomar]

a 6600gt should be just fine for you, its a little cheaper for the pci-e variant which is what i assume he wants since its in the title

 

[imported_Kensai]

6600 or 6600GT.
A 9800 Pro won't work. It's AGP only...

 

[kmmatney]

If your lucky, an overclocked 6600 can give decent performance.

NewEgg has an X800 card for $196, which is a bit faster than the 6600GT. The X700Pro is generally a little slower (except for a few ATI optimized games). However it is priced a bit lower $130, so may be better bang for buck. Overall, the 6600GT is in the sweet spot.