Replacement for graphics card…advice?!

Hi, my graphics card GeForce6600LE played up on me recently and I need to get a new card. I have AGP. I dont want to spend money on a new rig, nor want to buy the 7800 card. I just want something to run next gen games (particularly Gothic 3) fluently.

The only cards I can get at this time (the only available) are 7700GS and quite a few from the 6600series and 7600.

What do you recommend? Whats the best card in-between the geforce6600LE and 7800's? The 7600 series have only 128-bit architectures, where as, even my broken down 6600LE had 256.

Im just not too sure what to buy. Thx.

You're in luck -- Tom's Hardware just did a feature on this very topic.

[ http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/…for_the_money/ ]

In your shoes, I wouldn't let my choice be constrained by whatever happens to be on the shelf right now; waiting a few days is a small price to pay to get one that's much better for the price.

Seems like their two last choices for AGP card - 7600 GT and X1950 PRO could be a reasonable choice depending on how much do you want to pay. Both should make Gothic 3 playeable with decent setting.

It is obvious that your motherboard is not state of the art anymore, so having a state of the art GPU won't really save the computer - the rest of the computer will become a bottleneck. If your CPU is fairly weak, or you have a low amount of RAM, making Gothic 3 play fluently means low settings no matter what graphics card you have.

I would recommend something along the lines of what Danicek is recommending, and be sure to have a decent CPU/enough memory. That should make the computer strong enough for 2007 and whatever games we get this year, altho you will probably have to lower the settings a bit on most next-gen games.

I went with the BFG 7800 GS OC. I then realized that I need a new power supply to power this bad boy so if you have any good suggestions for a powerful, yet inexpensive PSU let me know. The 7800 needs 450w and 20A for 12V output.

Do you consider this a PC you want to keep for a while, or is the power supply something that only has to last untill you can afford a new computer?

If you want quality, I recommend the MIST 500W power supply. With that you can easily power a strong, non-SLI PC. They cost a bit more than most, but in my opinion it's worth it.

Maylander, funny you should say "motherboard is not state of the art". Thats exactly true. Ive got an old Soltek MotherBoard, with an old 64-bit Athlon 3200+. Actually I was reading up on graphics cards and they said "Its end of the line for AGP" and also "The 3200+ are the LOWEST processors available, soon to be obselete and not in production".

Im not entirely convinced of GF7600 series. But the X1950 PRO seems good, or even the X800 for that matter. GF6800 are all sold out!!! Shame!

I probably will wait a week or two before buying, as Prime Junta said. Plus, im not desperate to play or anything, and i'll probably be getting a new rig next year anyway.

Cheers

If you want a graphiccard that wont get outdated quickly after Vista comes, 8800GTS is the best budget card despite the price.

Originally Posted by JemyM
If you want a graphiccard that wont get outdated quickly after Vista comes, 8800GTS is the best budget card despite the price.

I doubt this one is out (or ever will be) for AGP.

No it won't, nor would it do any good on his system. The performance difference between a brilliant two-card SLI GeForce 8800GTX solution and a single GeForce 7600 would be very small because the rest of his computer would be the problem. With his kind of motherbord/cpu it's better to invest in a graphics card that will revitalize the computer for a while, making it possible to play new games at decent graphics, and then save up for a new one, or at least a complete overhaul.

If you want to fully take advantage of a GF80 series card, or any other DX10 card in the future (like the r600), you need a strong computer - I'd recommend at least AMD X2 4600 (or equivalent), 2GB ram and a decent motherboard.

The bottom line is: A GPU can't do a whole lot unless the rest is capable of keeping up.

Originally Posted by Maylander
The bottom line is: A GPU can't do a whole lot unless the rest is capable of keeping up.

Sure… The note above seemed like he was suggesting the card.

Other than that, I would agree that it is a good card but still too expensive…

Originally Posted by nameless hero
Maylander, funny you should say "motherboard is not state of the art". Thats exactly true. Ive got an old Soltek MotherBoard, with an old 64-bit Athlon 3200+. Actually I was reading up on graphics cards and they said "Its end of the line for AGP" and also "The 3200+ are the LOWEST processors available, soon to be obselete and not in production".

I'm playing Gothic 3 on a 3000+ (not semphron -no budget cpu for me-, but I don't think it was still called Athlon) with a 7800GS AGP. Just like you, I had to go for an agp card too cause of the mobo. With my 2GB RAM however, Gothic 3 plays fluently on good settings. (I've tweaked Gothic 3, so I could have a higher view distance)

I was not talking about speed when I mentioned 8800, I was talking about lasting potential. We already passed the "must have pixel shaders 2" and now we are in "must have Pixel Shaders 3". We are going into DirectX 10.0 so it will be during2007 we will see the first "must have DX10 card" games.

Originally Posted by JemyM
We are going into DirectX 10.0 so it will be during2007 we will see the first "must have DX10 card" games.

I doubt that. Even if the developer is talking about bombastic graphics that will require DX10, their distributor will surely prevent them from doing so. Any such title would be likely from A+ sector of games (and that would mean several years of development by the way). They wouldn't limit themselves to 10% (or less) of the sales they could have if they support DX9 as well.

the bfg 6600 gt oc which i got just over a year ago ~$200 has both pixel shader 3 technology and gddr3 and while only 128mb memory, along with a p4 2.4 and a motherboard over 3.5 years old and 2 ram, i have been able to play every game that comes out including gothic 3 and nwn2 with at least medium settings.

Yes, I realize that GF80 series is "tomorrows cards, today", but for someone with a mediocre or poor computer it's not actually worth it, as they will have to buy a completely new computer before they could ever make it run any better than a GF70 card. Might as well just wait and buy the whole package in those cases, as everything will need replacing. There is no way you'll make a DX10 game play on the computers mentioned here, regardless of whether or not your graphics card support it.

I've got an AMD Athlon 2600+, even lower than yours, 1.5 Gig Ram and a 7800GS.

I play Gothic 3 with settings medium to high. My performance is significantly weaking by my CPU, for example plants and dynamic models cost my a lot of performance. Still my fps is 25 on average, with a minimum of 20 and a max of 30 for outdoor and around 15 on average in large cities.

If you can find a 7600GT with an AGP-slot (I've seen some of them but couldn't get it shipped to where I live), that would be a good buy. It's a bit better than the 7800GS.

Originally Posted by Sem
If you can find a 7600GT with an AGP-slot (I've seen some of them but couldn't get it shipped to where I live), that would be a good buy. It's a bit better than the 7800GS.

That is not quite true. A 7600GT is sometimes a little bit faster than a 7800GS in synthetic benchmarks where the "raw power" (= the Mhz of the GPU core which is much higher on a 7600GT) counts. In almost all real world applications/games, however, it's the 7800GS that's in the lead if the core/memory are running at default settings on both cards. It's a pretty minor advantage though and certainly not worth the hefty markup, i.e. the 7600GT definitely has a much better price/performance ratio.

Anyway, the current top performance ranking for AGP cards (pixel shader 3.0 capable ones) looks like this:

1) ATI X1950 Pro (excellent AGP card that is cheaper than a 7800GS and performs approximately like a 7900GT PCIe… so much for AGP being "dead" or too slow )
2) GeForce 7800GS+ (with the same G71 chip and specs as the 7900GT PCIe)
3) GeForce 7800GS+ "budget" (with 20 pixel shader units like a 7900GS PCIe instead of the 24 shaders of the card above)
4) GeForce 7800GS (the original, regular model that is not a direct PCIe derivative)
5) GeForce 7600GT

Originally Posted by Moriendor
1) ATI X1950 Pro (excellent AGP card that is cheaper than a 7800GS and performs approximately like a 7900GT PCIe… so much for AGP being "dead" or too slow )

Yes, I believe this one single card is today's best price/value card for both AGP and PCI. I understand though that quite a lot of people want 'more' even when the price/value is slightly worse.

Ok, ive decided… Ill get the GF7600GT!!!
So which brand??? there are Leadtek and Palit. Palit is $70 Bucks cheaper.