Another help me upgrade my dinosaur AGP question!

Hi all!

I just don't have the money to change everything to PCI-E yet, so I'm trying to squeeze out what I can with this:

Athlon 3800+ CPU
2gigs RAM
500W PS
6800 (vanilla) GPU

There are some new games coming out (Hellgate London!!!), plus some old ones (eg Oblivion), in which I'd like to have at least medium settings, if possible...so I thought I'd try upgrading my graphics card..but I'm stuck! I don't want to spend more than $150, would prefer to spend ~$100. I prefer NVIDIA.

To really make a change, I could get a 7900GS or, even better, a 7950GT (and obviously spend more than I planned), but if I understand correctly, this would mean buying an XFX card, and from what I've read they don't seem too reliable.

Other than that, I'm looking at an EVGA (love EVGA!) 7800GS or a Leadtek 7600GT. I know these aren't as big a change as the 7900 range would be, but then, they are more in my price range, and they aren't by XFX. Would buying one of these get me enough of a performance increase to warrant ~$100? And if so, which of these two is the best???? I'm leaning towards the EVGA, but I thought I'd ask the experts first!

Thanks for any info!!!

Kathy

I know you like Nvidia, but the X1950 PRO is your best beet dude, especially if you want to play Oblivion.

An X1950 PRO will kill a 7900 GS in Oblivion, and even takes on the 7900 GTX, for wayyyy less money. Check the benchmark:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/grap [...] &chart=295

For the record... your CPU is still good for gaming. The only game I've seen that truly needs dual-core is Supreme Commander.