Which graphics card should I choose?

Hi i am a gamer, and i have had this dimension 4600 for quite a while. My processor is a PGA type 3.4Ghz HT with sick heatsink. I have two 512mb PC3200 DDR RAM Dual. As well my power supply is a standard atx (no properiety) 250w dell power supply. I plan to upgrade this power supply to a more powerful 500w and have my choice made. But, I need help choosing an agp8x graphics card. There are lots of cards out there, and my budget is $100-200, and I have narrowed it down to the nvidia geforce 6800 and the ati x1600 pro. I would really like input, as i am not that experienced in choosing and its tough deciding between them. If you have any other cards to suggest that are in the price range and perform better, then please do recommend. Thanks in advance.

Yes i also own a dell dimmension 4600(ready to give back to mom on thursday) and Personally, I HATE IT! Its only caused me problems, it blew up my x700pro video card, and the Motherboard failed on it. Anyways, starting with the processor, adequate ghz put-out, that'll be fine. The ram now, i threw in another 1GB of ram to mine, making it 1.5GB, i suggest you do that as well, Anything from OCZ will do fine, just make sure its DDR2. power supply, anything from antec or enermax, 500-550 might be overkill, but its up to you, 430-450 might do the trick. Graphics card, Either the 6800GT or the x1600xt will do fine, all in that price range, although i would purchase it from newegg.com if your living in the states. They sell the x1600xt for about 130-155 bucks, with shipping. 6800GT from 140-165. If you find something better though, go for it. If you get lucky, maybe you'll see a x850xt for under 200 or around 200-210. Anyways, good luck with your rig.

oh sorry only x1600 pro. I have dual 512 PC3200 DDR Samsung ram running to increase performance, total 1GB, which is adequate currently. The x850 is a great choice but it has no shader model 3.0, which i believe the 6800 properly supports. And to add in more of my computer, i have 3 pci connected, one firewire pci, one 56kmodem pci, one soundblaster x-fi xtreme music. Two hard drives, one sata one ide. two dvd+rw and a floppy drive. So the x1600 is totally eliminated as it doesnt even support shader model 3.0 properly i hear, but the 6800 still has hope, and if the x850 has proper shader model as 6800, im definitely getting it.

Let me just ask a few questions for you to think about. What do you mean by not support SM3.0 properly? Too slow? And just what benefit does proper SM3.0 support give you if you owned either of those two cards compared to a SM2.0 card? And in this case, a much faster Sm2.0 card. What games require PS3.0? None, and by the time they do, a 6800 will be trash do to lack of performance anyway. What can't you do with the X850 pro SM2.0 card that you can do with a SM3.0 6800? I can think of two things: 1) run every test in 3DMark06 - which isn't worth much. 2) Use OpenEXR HDR. Which the 6800 is too wimpy for anyway. Otherwise there is very little visual difference between SM2.0 codepath and SM3.0 codepath if you don't have the power to run eye treats like HDR and soft shadows. So what's the benefit? Future support? Visual Quality? 3dMark06?

I'm with Cleeve, in this caliber of card, you go with the better performer, which is easily the X850 pro. When deciding between similar performing cards like 6800GT vs X850 pro, then let Sm3.0 support be the tie breaker.

Check out just how future ready the GF6's are when already there is a game that brings them to a halt when trying to run all the eye candy. Of course, this game stresses all the current GPU's. Here's a faster 16 pipe 6800GT AVERAGING 11 FPS at 10x7 max with HDR. The plain 12-pipe 6800 would do even worse. Ok, so lets just drop the resolution to 800x600 and lower the detials to medium instead. Well, the same 6800GT then manages a whopping 21 FPS AVERAGE. Pathetically below a X1600XT even.


OK, now lets take a look at a X800XL, basically on par or maybe a tad bit above a X850 pro at stock speeds. Well, at the same exact detial levels, the X800XL averages 43.2 fps at 8x6 running 2xaa/8xaf. up it to 10x7 and it's 34.5 fps average. at 12x10 resolution 2x/8x it manages 25 fps. So at the same detail levels, the X800XL SM2.0 card performs better in Oblivion Outdoor areas at 1280x1024 with 2Xfsaa/8xAF than the 6800GT does at 800x600 with HDR. LINK. And if you go on to read more, the 6800GT is still far behind the X800XL if you decide to turn off HDR and run fsaa and bloom instead.

Don't get me wrong, HDR looks impressive, and all things equal sure I'd want the Sm3.0 card just to tinker with HDR even. But think about why you want SM3.0 so bad. If it's for future game support and/or eye candy like OpenEXR HDR or soft shadows, then the 6800 is not the SM3.0 card you want.

Looking way down the line I see GF6/X8xx like the DX8.0 PS1.1 GF4Ti4200 not supported by BF2 when it came out but the slower Radeon 8500 was supported because it is a DX8.1 card with PS1.4 support. So the 8500 owners could attempt to play BF2 right out of the box while the Ti4200 owners could not. But the Radeon 8500 is just too slow to enjoy BF2, and the better gaming card to own was and still is the ti4200. I think that would be the same case if you buy a GF6800 over a faster X850 pro. When the time comes you are forced to replace the X850 pro for game support, the 6800 just won't be capable of any enjoyable gaming anyway in that game. And until then, you could have much higher performance leading to higher resolution, detail levels, and AA/AF, just getting the more powerful Sm2.0 card. If you simply must have a SM3.0 card. Get a used 6800GT or get a 7800GS. Don't buy a slow card thinking it's feature set makes it the better gamer. X850 pro/ X800XL for under $140 shipped is a far better value than any Sm3.0 AGP card at prices I have seen.

thanks everyone. I have made my decision, the x850 pro is perfect, and added with that you can unlock 4 extra pipelines, this is a worthy card to replace my agp geforcefx5200 128mb until i can get a new motherboard later on, and a processor, as no more socket478 PCI-E motherboards. Thanks for all the help.

[quote="thegame4ever"]As well my power supply is a standard atx (no properiety) 250w dell power supply./quote]

I put in a another standard 250w power supply from a friends computer and it worked. Lucky my 4600 was standard and not properiety. So nothing stands in the way of a new power supply and gfx card. Thanks for your concern.