Video Card Upgrade Recommendations

[Andre]

I'm looking to upgrade my video card and after reading a number of in-depth reviews, I'll admit I find it very difficult to evaluate the options. I'm hoping for some specific recommendations.

My PC is almost four years old. It's a Pentium 4, 2.0 ghz with 768mb of fast RAM. Adding more RAM is not really an option, given the cost of this particular type of memory and the limited number of slots available. I'm running Windows XP Home with all the patches.

My current video card is a GeForce Ti4200 AGP, which was a decent middle-of-the-pack card when I got my PC. I'm looking for something around $150.00 or less. I personally don't see the need to splurge on the latest high-dollar card, when it will be available at a discount in a year or two.

So...any suggestions?

 

[trancejeremy]

My computer isn't quite as old, but I just got a 7600 GS for $110 or so from Newegg. I'm very happy with it. An improvement over my old 6600 GT. Probably the best AGP card for the money is the 7600 GT, but they can be hard to find.

 

[TwistedBishop]

It depends a lot on what your system can accommodate.

The 7600GS is probably a great card for you -- solid for the price and you can find them in AGP versions. The 7600GT only comes in PCI-e that I've seen.

 

[trancejeremy]

The 7600 GT AGP does exists, it's just almost never in stock in stores

 

[Mycanid]

The 7600 is a great card. I have one AGP style in my moboard and it runs Oblivion wonderfully.

They DO sell x1600 ATI cards for the AGP slot, but all the reviews of it I have read say they run way too hot.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

You should also make sure your power supply can handle the power load of a newer card.... and all your other gadgets... And plenty of room in your box. Not sure about the inexpensive cards, but some PCI-E cards take up TWO slots due to the cooling fan.

 

[Andre]

You should also make sure your power supply can handle the power load of a newer card.... and all your other gadgets... And plenty of room in your box. Not sure about the inexpensive cards, but some PCI-E cards take up TWO slots due to the cooling fan.

I'll find out this weekend. I picked up the 7600GS today (thanks for the recommendations everyone) and will dig into my pc on Saturday. Keeping my fingers crossed...

 

[trancejeremy]

Since you have some time before installing, you might want to check the cd-rom that came with it to see if the drivers are fairly recent (I think at least 91.37 or something like that) - because only the last two nvidia releases have supported that card. In my case, the ones on the cd-rom I got, was from August, which didn't support it.