6600GT to 7600GT (AGP)

Wow. Easy. 7600gs or 7600gt you say?

The case of ultra high end cards needing ultra high end sub systems (CPU/memory/etc) does not translate well to mid-range as what you are talking about. I sense you are talking more about price vs/performance.
The cheapest 7600gs I could find on Newegg costs $89 and the cheapest 7600gt costs $99. Think rationally about this without the marketing B.S. When people are on the bleeding edge of technology, perhaps they think nothing of spending 2x as much to get a 10% increase in performance, but if you spend just 10% more than the norm you often get a disproportionate return for the money spent! price vs. performance!  

back to the question. I say 7600gt, if simply limited between these two cards.

:? Um...
The guy who responded earlier must not have been paying attention to the fact that you said AGP. That makes things a whole new story.

I checked Newegg quickly and found that the cheapest GS was around $110 after a mail-in rebate. If you are looking to get a GT, they sell for more like $180. There is quite a big difference in the clock speeds of the GT and the GS. The GT is fast enough that your system mighbe be CPU limited some to most of the time. The GS isn't as fast and probably wouldn't be CPU limited. Since you have only 4x AGP, you might want to wait for Toms article where they are going to compare 4x, 8x, and PCIe before you make a move.

Part 1 is found here.

Quote:

Wow. Easy. 7600gs or 7600gt you say?

The case of ultra high end cards needing ultra high end sub systems (CPU/memory/etc) does not translate well to mid-range as what you are talking about. I sense you are talking more about price vs/performance.
The cheapest 7600gs I could find on Newegg costs $89 and the cheapest 7600gt costs $99. Think rationally about this without the marketing B.S. When people are on the bleeding edge of technology, perhaps they think nothing of spending 2x as much to get a 10% increase in performance, but if you spend just 10% more than the norm you often get a disproportionate return for the money spent! price vs. performance!  

back to the question. I say 7600gt, if simply limited between these two cards.

Yes, HeavyF is right, if you really want to extract the full power of 7600GT a good CPU, with a fast Ram will definitly help. A Core 2 Duo atleast, hell i almost forgot you have a AMD (a old one)   this makes it more tough. You need a complete system overhaul, Atleast the CPU, RAM, mobo,

busted. I should have realized that the poster was looking for AGP info. I jumped to an answer. Still, given the cost/benefit of what I originally stated and that upgrades are inevitable... is there a reason to invest in AGP? This has been discussed in other posts, so no need to rehash etc, but maybe the cost to keep the system functional and upgraded is disproportionate to the benefit.

Think about it.. AGP has been phased out longer than the parallel port!

I am going to build a new system this summer.

The situation is that I have the opportunity to sell my 6600GT. I wasn't going to upgrade this system any longer, but since I have an offer for the video card, I thought I might give it a try.

I was going to keep this system after buying the new one, because it still works quite well, and I wouldn't get a fair price trying to sell it. So I thought why not keep it for LAN parties?

Since I am in Europe (Romania) newegg prices don't apply.
But it goes like this: 6600GT - sell for around $100-110
7600GT - buy for around $200
7600GS - buy for around $140

At those prices, I'd be tempted to upgrade GS. If you are only going to keep it for a little while, the GT seems like overkill. Of course, I don't know if you are using approximate US dollars, or the Euro or whatever currency you use in Romania.

Just as a side note, it would have been helpful if you mentioned where you were from in your first post. I know in my case, when I think of the economic value of a piece of hardware I usually think of Newegg or a couple other online retailers and in other countries, prices can be much different.

Those prices I wrote are aproximations in $ of what I would really have to pay in the local currency.

Thanks for the replies. Also the link to that THG article was very good. I'll have a look on the next parts too.

Edit: I also added the location information to my profile.

i would answer you with something other in mind...

i see it like this: you spend ~30$ to change the 6600GT to a 7600GS
or you spend ~90$ to change the 6600GT to a 7600GT

your system will limit the cards especially, considering that the agp is also 4x, the GT will be more overkilled than the GS

so there are 2 options based on the usage of your pc...

if you play alot and go often to lan parties go for the GT but if the use of the pc after the summer, when you buy your new pc, will be minimal then keep the extra 60$ and go for the GS

my personal (biased) opinion would be go for the GT or dont change anything.

p.s. sorry for my english

Going to a 7600GT would be fairly significant upgrade from a 6600GT. Going to a 7600GS would be an upgrade, but IMO not much of one. Don't worry about AGP 4X. You wouldn't really be able to tell the difference between 4X and 8X. Also, I wouldn't worry about your CPU bottlenecking a 7600GT. If you've got the money for it, definitely go for the 7600GT. It'll hold you over for a while. If you don't, save your money because I think you'd be a bit disappointed with a 7600GS.

I'm not sure whether the 4x will hold you back or not.

I recently went from a 6800GS to a 7800GS and the improvement was noticeable all around. I wasn't certain if I would gain much improvement between the two but I was pleasantly surprised. My understanding is that the 7600GT's performance is just behind that of the 7800GS.

It certainly wouldn't hurt anything to upgrade. Most people are going to tell you not to invest in your ageing system. However, not everyone has the same goals or circumstances so do what's best for you. Will you see an improvement...Most certainly. Will just upgrading your GPU put you in High Settings across the board with today's games...No Chance!

I upgraded my ageing AGP system so that I can use it as a second house pc. I just finished a new C2D rig and it blows away my old P4 3.2 system.

glHF

I am leaning towards a 7600GS purchase, preferably with DDR3, and overclocking it to GT speeds (at least the GPU, if I can't find a DDR3 one).

That would mean getting a GT for less money. From what I read the GS is good at overclocking.