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Video Card Replacement Advice

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PsychoticPenguin

Gawd
Joined
Jun 8, 2002
Messages
581
So... my 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro (the original - 380MHz core, 340MHz memory) fritzed out today. Its 4 years old, so I guess it was on its last legs anyways. I've completely ignored video card stuff the last few years, so I'm oblivious. If I was looking for a card of similar or slightly better performance these days, what cards would I be looking into? I want to keep price as low and possible but might be willing to plunk down a little extra for some more performance.
 
You could pick up a 7600GS for $100~$150 or so.. there great inexpensive cards.
 
While my video card hasnt died just yet, you are in a similar boat as me.....running an old card on an old system that runs pretty good. Problem is even if you drop 100 to 150 into a new card you are still sorta wasting that money.....my advice is to take the plunge and get a new motherboard, processor, ram and yes video card......sounds like alot, but really why delay the inevitable? Everyone has to upgrade sometime right :D
 
While nice and new is great, if you have a system that needs only one part and is working well for you, then I would say fix that before an upgrade unless you really want the upgrade.

Why? Simple. The longer you delay an upgrade that you don't need other than to fix a broken part, the better the technology will be anyway.

Hardware is so powerful now that unless you really need or want the power, why even bother? Don't get me wrong, I love gadgets.

But I started running Vista Ultimate on a three year old VIA KT800 754 Athlon 3400+ system. Overall, I was actually suprised how well it ran.

I really don't want do a real Vista upgrade until drivers get a little better, so I got an X1950 AGP card for the old system, upgraded to 2GB, and this will do me just fine for Vista for a few months. Gaming's not like my sig rig, but it's not bad, and the only think that's Vista only that I know of that coming out this year is Halo 2, which is just Microsoft making an excuse for gamers, who have deep computer budgets, to upgrade to Vista.

So I'd keep the old stuff for a little longer.
 
While I agree with the above poster, the particular card he linked for the op's consideration is a horrible, terrible card. And I'm not just saying this to be rude, I had a X1600pro AGP and it was by far the absolute worst video card I have ever owned.

Look around NewEgg and you can find deals on the 7600 series.. they are, as I said before, great bang for the buck cards.....
 
you know while it may seem like i am blindly saying upgrade everything i am only recommending from experience....

Say you do drop 100ish in a new video card.....well then that is going to delay your upgrade for a while because you just put good money in an old system.....

what are you going to do in a few months when the dx 10 games come out? you will have put good money in a system that wont run them and are you going to really want to wait a year or more to play the new games?

i say dont fight the upgrade, take it as a sign and roll with it
 
There are definitely two schools of thought on this, and both have been discussed to death.. but.. The only problem I have with the above given advice is the fact that right now, today, there aren't many options if you choose to make the move to a DX10 card.

I personally would rather spend ~$100 now and keep an aging system running for another six or eight months, and have a few more options available when the time comes for a complete upgrade... But that's just my opinion....
 
would you be interested in a evga 6800 non-ultra? i think they're better than 7600gs's. someone correct me if i'm wrong.

hit me up if you are :)
 
thanks for the advice guys. unfortunately med school tuition payments = no full upgrade for the forseeable future. I game casually and tend to stick to some of my faves (Oblivion, HL2, etc), so ragin FPS isn't really a high priority. I know DX10 and Vista are gonna make me plunk down the cash eventually, so I'm just tryin to milk things in the mean time. $110 for a 7600 is lookin good for me right now. I can function just fine without crazy AA/AF settings so AGP 8x should run me fine for now.
 
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