Video card selection-need some advice.

Hi,
I sent alot of time choosing my new card and considered similar cards to you.
IMHO, the X800XL will not preform as well as the 7600GT and I don't think it supports shaders 3.0.
As far as I know the X1650pro's performance is similar the the standard 7600GT.
I chose Gigabyte 7600GT Silent, it fell into the correct price bracket for me and I was building my first SLI machine so I had to have 2.
I would recomment the Nvidia option as it allows you to go SLI (assuming you are talking PCIe) later if you want to and the performance of the GT will not dissappoint.

I was speaking relatively, the 7600GT on it's own is a good card for the money, it performs well and does not require a huge PSU.

While I do not recommend SLI for the everyone, I said that I was building my first one (more to see what it was all about) and that it does give the option to upgrade to SLI later if you want to.

On a side note, the card prices in Australia are very high compared to the US, I got a really good deal on my cards and considering that it would have cost me an extra AU$100 to get a 7950, I think I made the right decision for me.

There are more options i would suggest online as it will be way cheaper.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] 73&CatId=0

If your gonna blow 250$ on a 7600GT then do mail in's to get your money back take the 7900GS for 234$! even cheaper than the 7600GT and comes with a 20 mail in.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] 45&CatId=0

IMHO that 7900GS is your only and best choice for your buget its a really high performer for such a low priced card.

If you dont wish to spend that much then go for the X800GTO which is also a nice card and maybe you could BIO's flash it to unlock the 4 extra pipelines.

The 7600GT is by far the best of the cards you listed. You can get it here for less upfront: EVGA E-GEFORCE 7600 GT PCI-E 256MB

Thanks, I'm aware. I live in MI and we get plenty of Canadian coin flowing through here. :-) But the difference is not $130 dollars. In fact, many of the people from Canuckville USA that I talk to get tech cheaper...