New GFX card advice needed

[ives]

Hi,

I've been out of the hardware market for quite a while and my gfx card, at least, needs an upgrade.
I have an Nvidia Ti4200, and I've had this for a couple of years.
I'm looking for a decent card to play games on. I have about £90- and would prefer to get an Nvidia card if at all possible.Reason being is that I use mostly Linux and I use the Nvidia TV-Out tool on Linux.

Can someone point me i nthe direction of a decnet card for the money?

Cheers,
Ives

[Deviate]

If you spent a little more you'd be able to get an nVidia 6600... AGP I assume... They go for £110 or so for the cheapest models...

[ives]

Thanks for the reply.
Are these cards considered mid range, in terms of speed?
If so, what kind of speed are top of the range cards reaching?

thanks,
Ives

[Merlin4458]

yeh they are mid range m8, but a very good card. I dont know about speeds but a simple google search will tell u. Im guessing on the rest of ur system as ive got a ti4200 its probably not worth getting anything better than 6600 as ur cpu will bottleneck ur gfx

[ives]

thanks guys!

[Nox]

If you spent a little more you'd be able to get an nVidia 6600... AGP I assume... They go for £110 or so for the cheapest models...

You can get them cheaper - I got an asus 6600 a little while ago for £60 from novatech. Lets just say it won't win any speed awards but is fine for NWN and WoW.

The memory is slower than a regular 6600, and the core too prolly - hence it being half the price

Nox

[StormPC]

Top end cards are a con as far as im concerned, mid range is wiser.

6800's ultra run about 400 core and 1100 memory.

I use a fx5200 and i can run any game at decent frame rates and it doesnt have fan making noise and taking over the nearest pci slot.

That's rediculous, and you and I must have a very different definition of "decent frame rates".

So how's that 14" CRT working out?

[mike_w]

That's rediculous, and you and I must have a very different definition of "decent frame rates".

So how's that 14" CRT working out?

I have a plain 9600, which isn't that much faster than an FX5200, yet I can still play all the games I have at medium settings with reasonable framerates (on a 17"), so I really don't see what is ridiculous. I don't really care how good the game looks since they all look decent at low settings now anyway, the gameplay is far more important.

Back to the topic of the thread, I think a 6600GT would be the best choice - they don't cost that much more than plain 6600s; you can get a Gigabyte 6600GT for around £125 from Scan.

[sawyen]

6600GT will be a wise choice, lower clock and memory would only punish you on higher resolutions. I suppose 9600 and a 5200 ultra would handle any games at decent frame rate for resolutions 800x600 and below. But you will questions the aim of the ULTRA setting made available on these games... probably thats the way the game dev wants the game to be experienced? I know me old 5600Ultra can only do Doom3 at best 30-35fps on 1024x768 on high settings.. brings back memories... FX was a joke to radeons then.

20 quid more would be a worthy investment for a 6600GT, that I can assure you..

[jimborae]

Another vote for the 6600gt, you can get them for £114 at lowestonweb.com (Leadtek oem, but thats never bothered me).

[bujinkan-ka]

I'm using a 6600GT in my system (the PCI-E version) and the card is pretty dammed good when it comes to playing with full detail. However, depending on which manufacturer has churned out the card you may be stuck with a terrible cooler on the card.

[sawyen]

I'm sure whatever his Ti4200 can handle, the 6600GT would be able to handle at a full performance stretch forward even at stock speeds. Softmod would be good, but 6600GT is already on top of its class... Any sensible OC wouldn't bring you any closer to its nearest ATi competition X800 Pro. But yes, some manufacturers do provide sub-par cooling solutions for these semi-enthu. cards.

[oralpain]

A 6600GT has quadruple the fill rate of a Ti4200. Good card for the money.

[ives]

Thanks so much for the info ,guys.
I'm now sold on the 6600GT..............
Cheers!
Ives

[Trippledence]

Ive got a 6600GT XFX ftw, with a temp sensor and overclokcing options., But the coolers pretty crap and its going for an arctic soon.

[Yohji]

I've just invested the AGP version of the XFX 6600GT, it's teh sechs, the drivers are great as Tripple says.