I'm building a new mid-range desktop so I can take it with me to college (I don't want to buy a whole laptop... only staying a semester). I'm proud of this rig because I've built it all with spare parts in my basement, and it's running great. The only thing that I'm going to buy new is a video card; I have a Radeon 9200 in it right now, and I'm going to want to play Oblivion and UT2K4

It's AGP, and I KNOW about PCI-Express... I'm not going to replace the motherboard for just PCI-e. In fact, my home system is running an X800. I just need to decide between these two Nvidia cards, and I have no idea which one to choose. Both have really great reviews on Newegg, and they're both roughly the same price. Anything I should know? And why is the core clock speed so slow compared to some ATI cards? And will a DVI-VGA adapter impair image quality? Here's my specs on the new rig:
Pentium 4 3.00 GHZ
1 GB RAM
PS 300 watts (might need to upgrade that...)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814141026
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150157

Get the XFX. It is faster in both core and memory clocks, and uses DDR3. The 512mb of memory on the other one isnt going to make a huge difference.

6800XTs suck. The XFX one sucks less.

Get your RMA trigger ready though.

Why? Is there a good chance it will be defected?

Yeah, I've heard a lot of the 6800XTs are defective.

If you had a budget of 200 that'd be awesome, but if this is all you have to work with...well...that's probably the best you can do.

Say I had a budget of $200 (or a bit more)... what would you suggest? And don't forget that my power supply is 300 W.

http://www.spartantech.com/product.asp?PID=ATIRX800XTPLAT256AOE&m1=pg
or
http://www.pcprogress.com/product.asp?PID=ATIRX800XTPLAT256AOE&m1=pg

The best choices.

You could take a stab at this but it being refurbed could cause problems.

Really I realized that the market is basically split in half right now, and the AGP market is quickly dying. Unfortunately I'm not selling my 6800GT right now, otherwise I'd offer it to you for 150. Though I may consider it in the near future.

Ohhh, spiffy. Thanks Yoshi.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]6800XTs suck. The XFX one sucks less.

Get your RMA trigger ready though.[/QUOTE]


Yeah, but in the price range it's pretty much that or the X1600 pro which is craptacular. I'd get that because there's a good chance you'll be able to unlock something at least. That's what I went with.

under $200... i'd suggest waiting for some reviews on the AGP 7600GS to pop up... now that the card is out

and yes... upgrading your PSU might be a good idea...

The 7600GS has a review or two--I remember seeing it somewhere. It's not that great.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]The 7600GS has a review or two--I remember seeing it somewhere. It's not that great.[/QUOTE]

the 7600GS AGP was JUST released... any reviews would be for the PCI-E version... also there is a possibility of a 7600GT MAYBE showing up in AGP

Yeah, the review I'm talking about is fairly recent.