nVidia/ATI Comparison is this list correct?

According to http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/06/best_graphics_card/ the 7600GT will barely be beaten by the 8600GT not the GS.

The updated list http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/06/best_graphics_card/page2.html showing whats the best buy for certain price ranges was just made yesterday great timing!!. I just need to find out which cards can fitt in a Vostro 200 Slim Mini tower so I can slim down my choices.

(X1650 GT, Radeon HD 2600 XT, 7600 GT, GeForce 8600 GT) in order of personal preference.

The card is for a new system I wish to purchase. I am going to capitalize on one of the deals listed below the Vostro 200 deal is better as I don't waste money on a GPU I wont ever use! However space is an issue in the slim tower. Also I for the $150 dollar difference I can get a better card and wait for a deal on ram.


Dell Vostro 400 Mini Tower $599
Intel® Core™2 Duo Proc E4500 (2.20GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800FSB)
Dell 20 inch Widescreen E207WFP Analog Flat Panel Display (with DVI)
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz - 2DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Single Drive: 16X (DVD+/-RW) Burner Drive
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8300GS
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Keyboard
Dell Scroll Mouse
10GB for 1yr Online Backup by Dell Datasafe

OR

Vostro 200 Slim Tower $449
Intel Core 2 Duo Proc E4500 (2.20GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800FSB)
Dell 19 inch Widescreen E198WFP Analog Flat Panel Monitor (w/ DVI)
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz - 2DIMMs
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
Single Drive: 16X (DVD+/-RW) Burner Drive
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
10GB for 1yr Online Backup by Dell Datasafe
Windows XP Home or Vista Home Basic
1 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service

The X1650GT is a little limited, it's a crippled XT, I would put the HD2600XT and GF8600GT in front as a tie, and then the X1650GT & GF7600GT as a tie behind them.

Personal preference of games/apps between those choices then.

I would pick the HD2600XT over 8600GT (see Cleeve's review on them) only because AA isn't as much a factor for them especially on a go-forward basis. But if you play mainly old school games, you'll prefer the GT for the less stressful AA bonus. Both are capable, and have nice little preference features (like the UVD on the XT). I would check some reviews and decide based on your useage plan.

Cleeve's reviews;
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/06/best_graphics_card/page2.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/13/the_radeon_2600xt_remixed/page11.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/26/avivo_hd_vs_purevideo/

Thanks a lot FYI newegg has the 7900 GS's for 119.99 but comes to 99.99 with mail in rebate. An there are reports that the same 7900 GS's are on clearance at BB.

So it appears there is lots of flexibility in this $100 price range.

So now im thinking about the HD2600XT or the 7900 GS. I'm googling as we speak.

The only issue with the GF7900GS even versus the GF8600GT is the newer more shader intensive games. the new architecture does much better, and even the old X1900s start to put a little more distance between themselves as the shader load has started to move towards that unbalanced level that was predicted.

Thanks a lot you and the everybody else here have helped me out a lot with understanding key differences and helped me make much more educated purchases.