advice on AGP video card

[Smilie]

Hi
strange forums to ask for advice on hardware
but cant think of any other UK based forums which could give me help

My cousin asked me to get a new video card for them
its for a older system (AGP) think its a P4 2.6Ghz or something (northwood i think)

the budget is under £150
as i dont do much reading on AGP cards
im not sure which card is good

im looking at the BFG GeForce 6800 GS OC 256MB
on offer priced at £129.19
price wise its good
and read a review and the performance is good also
but are there any other cards better??
6600gt was good some time ago but how good is it compared to 6800GS
the 7800GS is too expensive
what about ATI cards??

thanks to any1 that can give me some advice

[Aragorn]

I'm sure Zing will be along later, but I always check out Tom's VGA charts (latest AGP Chart).

The 6800GS seems to fit between the 6800 & 6800GT.

ATI wise, there is an X800 GTO and the new X1600 Pro in your price range. Not used either myself - happy with my 9800Pro. (Short review of X1600 here)

[Smilie]

damn
the offer for the 7800GS has finished
now its another £35

any other recommendations??

X800 gto http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/AGP.html

Or the X1600 pro

both good cards but for under 150 quid I would still point you at the 6600gt 256 meg cards
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...GP_Series.html

[Smilie]

Looking at overclockers for price reference
will look on other sites when decided upon which card
the cheapest 6800 GS is £162 (+VAT and shipping)
and the cheapest 6600GT 256mb is £120.97 (+VAT and shipping)

so for the extra £40 is it worth it??
should be ok pricewise (2-3 of us paying for a cousins birthday present, so dont really mind paying abit more)


My cousin doesnt really play much games
only wanted to get it to play Sims 2(never know why she likes it so much)
at 1024x768 res

now i realise how good a offer that 6800GS is (XFX 6600GT 256mb sells for the same price)
but other cousin only called me yesterday about getting card as present
so didnt had much time to check out AGP cards benchmarks

I still like the look of the 6600GT over the 6800GS
My reasoning is purley based on core speed.IMO the 6800GS will not be massively better speced out to cover the 125 on average mhz slower GPU

On review the 6800 GS appears to have a GPU core speed of 325 to 400 mhz
GDDR speeds of between 1000 and 1100 12 pipelines 5 vertex shaders and 12 texture units
The 6600GT has a GPU core speed of 500 mhz GDDR speeds or 900 to 1000 mhz 8 pipelines 4 vertex shaders and 8 texture units

The better of the GT's clock in at £140 quid The better of the GS's top out at £170 if you can spend the extra by all means go with the GS if you think the pipelines will out weigh the core speed.

But Take a good look at the ATI range for £199 you can have an X850 xt a much better card imo over the nvidia range at the price or the better of the X800 Gto that imo again matches the 6800GS for 30 quid less

[keithwalton]

This x1600 looks good to me http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...aGX_2d120_2dSP

512megs of onboard ram operating at 128bit width but on a 256bit ring bus, 12 pixel pipelines @ 500mhz (6000 pixels/s fill rate, compared to 6800 gs' 4800 max and the 6600gt's 4000max) 5 vertex shaders and 8 geometry lines. All for £105.69

not to mention its an X1k series ati so it has all the latest bells and whistles (shader model 3.0, avivo).

Looking at the vga charts, the x1600 pro should slot in just ahead of the x800 pro (faster core slightly slower ram) which would put it ahead of the 6800gt in most cases. As said its using the new ati 500 series arch so should be faster than its older bigger brother.

Big review on the x1600 http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/sapphire_x1600pro/

Scrap what i've said it appears i've been duped by the ati marketing system, the x1600 is really a 4 pixel pipeline card at heart much like the x600 it replaces. So infact an x800 is quite alot quicker as its a true 12/16 pipeline cards

Again in my opinion the memory lets down the X1600 its only using ddr2 instead of GDDR3 I think this spoils a really good card.If they release a X1600 XT (in agp pci-e exists)however that will be a mid spec card in agp to die for

[keithwalton]

the memory isnt the only thing wrong with the x1600 after reading a bunch of reviews it would appear the ati r500 fudd continues. Much like the x1900 series which they claim has 48 pixel units at heart its still a 16 pipeline card. The x1600 claims to have 12 but its really only a 4 unit device which means my 2 1/2 year old 9800xt is still quicker than it.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2552&p=9

that shows how much of a dog the x1600 is (note thats the faster xt version!)

[Smilie]

thanks guys for the the help
think im leaning towards the X800GTO
even tho it doesnt have all the newest features
its fast enough and my cousin would only be playing Sims 2

but any1 knows if the new 7600GT gonna be coming out with AGP??
had a quick look at the reviews/previews
but dont seem to see anything about AGP

well wont be getting that anyway
was just thinking if they do they might push the 6800GS and 6600GT down in price

and again thanks for the help guys really appreciate it
didnt think of X800 GTO

BTW i remember reading that ATI came out with X800GTO and X800GT
at the same time
even tho i cant seem to find the GT anywhere (so i cant buy it)

its been too long and i cant remember which 1 was supposed to be faster
cant find the review for it either(was firingsquad or tomshardware)
do u guys know??

[Aragorn]

Comparison between X800GTO and 6800GS here if you are interested.

That makes interesting reading,The 6800GS does appear to be the fastest card but its also the most expensive by some margin.It also loses a lot of its edge at higher resolutions.
IMO in the sub £200 mkt the X850(not in the tests) will beat all them cards by a good way