video card upgrade

I have a 2.56 pent 4 with a gig of ram. Current card is a gefource 4 mx420 with 64 megs of ram agp 4x slot. Should i go for a older card with 256 megs of ram or a newer one with 128. with a e bay budget of 50-75 bucks what would give me the best bang for the buck. the only other gaming i do is ut2004.

I recommend the 6600/256MB, they have a very reasonable price/performance ratio and can be had for about $112 in AGP (newEgg), and are supported by SL. If you have a PCI-e slot, they start at about $86. I use one in my wife's PC. You could try the 6600LE, 6200, 5700 and 5500 series as well, they are cheaper, obviously.

I have seen other posts stating that SL does not distinguish much between 128 versus 256 MB of video ram, which could save you money as well, but I have not personally tried to test that.

From my experience I would not use ATI again, it seemed to contribute more problems (crashes) than solutions. I had, at different times, a 9250, 9550 and an X800GTO, and definitely had more problems with them.

One thing I have noted is that as SL produces more upgrades the demands on one's system increase. I finally got a dual core cpu and a matching video card (AMD 64 x2 3800, 7800GT) and have noticed a considerable improvement.

Mention was made somewhere that overclocking the CPU helps more than doing the same to the video card; I found the x2 3800 overclocks handily with stock cooling to 2.6GHz, putting it over the x2 4800 in benchmarks, a pretty awesome capability. SL certainly seems to run better, the more CPU you throw at it.

Oh please don't get an LE! LE's are defective chips that are stable enough to run at lower clock speeds, but utterly fail at originally intended factory spec. I'd try for a 6600GT even if it means borrowing some cash or just waiting a little longer. 6200 is ok, but not all that good. I have a 5500 myself and I'm planning on upgrading to at least a 6600GT hopefully a 6800GS.

are there good card manufacturers vs bad?

do you think you can see the diffrance betweem the 6600gt and the 6800gs?

how about this card.. BFG GeForce 6200 OC 256Mb DDR AGP 375MHz 8x/4x

thanks

The BFG cards are factory overclocked, which is what the "OC" refers to, but don't really give much, if any, better performance than a standard card of the same type.

I'm gonna put in a plug here for the illustrious FlipperPA Peregrine of slboutique.com-- if your machine has a PCI-e slot, he carries an NVidia 6600 256 MB card for L$35,000, which, at today's average of L$295 per US$1, works out to roughly $118. Not an unreasonable price for a genuine NVidia card, and you're supporting a fellow SLer's business to boot.

P2

This really doesn't help him, he clearly states he has an AGP card......

Ok, here's one in keeping with:

A) AGP slot
B) Your Budget

GeForce 5700 VE

I just found out i have a 200 watt power suppy. anyone know if a gefource 6200 or a 6600 will work with that. Anyone know if a off the shelf power supply will work with a HP pavillian 763n

200 watt and a gforce 6x00 youre going to have issues, rec min 450watt, especially on a agp.

I had issues with a cheepo 400watt.

Recomended min is 350Watt actually.

And yes Bilbo, you will notice a difference between a 6600GT & a 6800GS. In stock state the 6600GT will seem faster frame rate wise, but the 6800GS has the memory bandwith for high resolutions and stuff like AA & AS. If you choose the right manufacturer, when overclocked the 6800GS (with stock cooling mind you) will outperform a stock 6800GT by a small margin.

ok 450 watt power supply on the way. I have desided on 6600 or 6800 looking on e bay now. 128 or 256 megs? what manufacter would you suggest?

thanks everyone for the help!

go 256mb , not much price diffrence really, i use Asus prob cause i never had issues with them, usually bit pricier.

I recomend either eVGA, Gigabyte, Asus, MSi, or TFT. If you're going 6800GS then try to find the TFT GeForce 6800GS XXX Edition if posible. Those puppies are preoverclocked running at 480mhz core and 1100mhz memoryunlike its competitors wich their overclocked versions are usually at 450mhz (oem stock is 425mhz). The TFT on its stock cooling can run at 515mhz core and 1250mhz memory and outperform the 6800GT easily and is still cheaper.

all of the above but i would like to add PNY

minor things, usually better heatsinks than the e-vga, and alot of times they have the extra stuff that asus has (like dual monitor support ect) for abit less

ive had 3 of them since the Geforce 2 and even with years of extreame overclocking abuse my GF2GTS/PRO still works like a champ (eventho the card is warped about 3/4 of an inch due to heat)

My PNY 6600GT has dual (DVI) monitor support, a nice fat heatsink, decent fan (altho im always replacing those within a few months) and it cost 140 (by the time you add shiping ect) 6 months ago, probally abit cheaper now