I have about $50 in Christmas money and $25 in a borders gift certificate (I might be able to find someone to trade me $25 for the certificate if I need to). I'm hoping tomorrow at my families Christmas gathering I get some more money.

I'm thinking I wanna get a video card if they have after-christmas sales but I'm not sure how much this stuff would cost. I'm thinking I don't want to spend more than $150 of my own money and I'm thinking I'll get $75 from others, so I'm in the $225 range. I think that's enough.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-412&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-080&depa=1


I plan to run around 1024X768 on most games cause I have a 17" monitor.
I'm upgrading from a GFTi4200 and I'm looking to run these games:
Rome: Total War
Richard Burns Rally
Half life 2
Doom 3
Battlefield Vietnam
UT4K
MSFS2004
and Lock-On (I list these in case you have prior experience with a specific card and these games)

I don't mean to bother or repeat anything, but I just know there are a ton of brands and I lack knowledge on the subject.

I don't know much about the GeForce 6x00 line other than the 6800, which is the bee's knees. But I do know that if you opt for the Radeon 9800, try to get either the Pro (which can be flashed to XT if you know what you're doing) or the XT. DJ Yoshi posted an OEM 9600XT on another thread that was $40 cheaper than the retail version. See if you can find something similar in the 9800 Pro or XT, unless you want the bundled software.

The 6600GT for sure. I have that card and love it. *Great* midrange priced card. Can run HL2 at 1600x1200, 8x AF, full detail, full shaders, etc. Can also run Doom 3 really well as well. Just a really nice card for the price overall. And you get all of the supported features that the higher end cards have.

Buying a 9800 Pro now would be a real waste since it's old technology now and quite a bit slower than the 6600 GT.

9800np can be flashed to XT, you just have to be lucky and get samsung ram on the card, not this damn infineon crap

Darth sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I'd listen to him.

Not really. All the benchmarks show that 9800 pro is as good if not better than a 6600 GT. Plus, the AGP 6600 GT is about 255. The 9800 pro is about 185. It's the 128 bit memory bus that kills it. The 9800 has a 256 bit bus. If you get a 9800 pro that you can flash to an XT, you're good. Stay away from the 128 bit bus 9800 pro.

You've obviously been looking at the wrong benchmarks then because the only game that a 9800 Pro can keep up with a 6600 GT in is HL2. Everything else the 6600 GT has a very noticeable advantage. And the AGP one is down to $220 now, not $245 anymore. It'll continue to go down until it levels with the PCI-Express version as well.

I have a ATI Radeon 9600XT and I run all those games perfectly.

<3 ATI

I got a 6800OC today, lovin' it.

nVidia 4 teh win!

Listen to this man. However, if you are looking for a PCI Express solution then go with the 6600GT. At the moment I am also looking for a video card of a similar price/performance range.

Got an ATi Radeon 9700 Pro used, full retail, with Arctic Cooling's VGA Silencer for $140 and it came to me dead :(. Luckily, the guy is refunding my money.

So, I'll probably be looking for a new card. When it comes to this range and of price and performance then it's pretty much a draw. ATi will be better for DirectX and nVIDIA will be better for OpenGL. Oh, and one other thing to consider, nVIDIA's video processor is better for media files, proof.

I'll be going for the 9800 Pro with 256-bit memory interface as they are cheaper used on AnandTech For/Sale Trade forum.

Do you have any examples? Does anyone know about the after-christmas sales? $220 would be fine, but I can't find one for that.

So I'm thinking the XFX I listed is a good deal?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-080&depa=1

Yeah. There's also a Leadtek one for $217. I have the XFX one because it was the only AGP version of the card out at the time and it's been fine. Overclocks pretty well too, if you're into that.

And for some comparisons:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njg5LDQ= NOTE: In this one, they're running the 9800 Pro at lower settings than the 6600 GT.

I could dig up more if you really want.

*Waits for the "those sites are biased!" claims...

I don't think I can resist the Leadtek card... $216 and it had all the games I don't own, same card, $1 or two less. I have all the games for the XFX. I'll check for other reviews of it first, but that looks too cool to pass up.

Leadtek's probably a safe bet. I haven't heard much about their recent cards, but I remember them being pretty good a few years back.

I haven't even touched any of the games that came with the XFX one yet, lol.

The 6600GT AGP version is nice, but really there haven't been any excellent AGP versions put out yet.

PCI-E 6600GT is where it's at.

Radeon 9600, works fine with most games...

Yeah, I'm loving my 9800 Pro 128MB, which I have OCed to 435/355 on stock cooling. Runs HL2 at 1024x768 with 2xAA and 4xAF perfectly. It's all I care about since, how many mods are going to be made for HL2? Exactly. This baby will do me good for a while yet.

It's the same card (except for those few manuacturers who clocked the memory lower, which XFX and Leadtek did not), with just a PCI-Express to AGP bridge in it... The bandwidth needed by the card (as with any of the other PCI Express cards out now) isn't enough to exceed what AGP can handle, so the performance differences are nil.

That should be the case, but it isn't. It's not quite the same card--they changed something but I can't for the life of me remember what. Check benchmarks--not quite the same card.

Some manufacturers lowered the memory clock down to 900 MHz, that's all. XFX, Leadtek, and some others did not however. The ones the benchmarking sites used had the 900 MHz memory though.

Then there's the auxillary power connector required on AGP that isn't on PCI Express, but that doesn't effect performance obviously.

No there's something else. HardOCP or Anand or Rojak covered this. Damnit, it's not coming to mind.

But there's a definite performance gap.

HL2 is the future man!

Show me then... I've seen zero mention of it anywhere, ever.

I remember seeing it, but I do remember the benchmarks showing the PCI-E version to perform better. I'm about to go out, but I'll see if I can dig it up tonight.