Which video card should I get?

I am looking at buying two video cards soon:

1) A Christmas present for my brother. He has an older system with, IIRC, and FX5600 AGP card in it. He can't afford a whole new system right now. I'm thinking maybe a 7600GT for him? I wouldn't want to spend much more than $100 or so.

2) A card for a new system I'm building for myself. I am not running out and buying the latest, greatest FPSes... I tend to play older games that I can get for $20 Right now, I have Half Life (yes, the original!) and HALO (yes, the original!) I do want to get Half Life 2. Yeah, I know... "8800GT". But nobody has them in stock, and if they do, it's for nearly $300. I'm looking at an eVGA 7600GT for $89 and figure that if I really, really wanted to, I could Step-Up to an 8800GT or something after the holiday season is over and hopefully supply picks up. I'd be perfectly happy with a $100-150 or so card... just about anything is going to blow my old Ti4200 away.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] ards-money suggests that the 8600GT DDR3 is the way to go, but several people have told me that the 7XXX series cards are commonly better than the lower-end 8XXX series cards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compa [...] sing_Units seems to indicate that the 7600GT and 8600GT are pretty similar. What's the difference?

Any other difference? Any reason other than that why I should get one or the other?

There's about no chance that I'll be playing any DX10 games any time in the near future... by the time i get to that point, I'll already have upgraded again.

7600GT was a good call,

7600GT>8600GT

No... although they are neck and neck in most titles, the 8600 GT is usually faster than the 7600 GT in newer, more demanding titles where it counts.

Here's one review showing 7600 GT vs. 8600 GT, but they usually tell the same story... neck and neck unless the title uses extensive shaders, then the 8600 GT pulls away.

http://www.techspot.com/review/51- [...] page6.html



Also, I've seen new 2600 XT's on newegg for $112, and they're a tad faster then the 8600 GT (when AA isn't used, and IMHO the 8600 GT isn't fast enough to use AA anyway).
Another good option.