Budget card, good deal or not?

Umm no it won't even come a bit close to the 3850.
Its not about the clock, its about what the card has, shaders, ROP, TMU. The 3850 has way more of those.

BTW, here is an 8600GT for $70 shipped AR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130085

OC'ed MSI for $86 shipped AR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127306

IceQ 2600XT Turbo 512MB for $89 AR would get my nod over the MSI above:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161174

no, 512 on the low-end cards do not help much. if you are really strapped on cash get a dell bro

seriously though 512 is not worth for that card, either go down for like a :

"BTW, here is an 8600GT for $70 shipped AR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130085

OC'ed MSI for $86 shipped AR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127306

IceQ 2600XT Turbo 512MB for $89 AR would get my nod over the MSI above:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161174
" -from pauldh

or, go up save like 4 more and get a hd 3850....But I would not make the mistake of deluding oneself that the 512 8600gt is worht it at that price anyways...but hey its your money, do with it as you please...

A dell? Hardly. Junk you mean. Not really, dells are nice, but not for me. I've worked on them, and hate the way they set things up. Kind of hate the way the big box brands set up their systems actually, some are a little cheesy, and far to complicated to work on what should be a simple task, too much garbage and plastic in the way. I prefer to build all my systems. Just lacking on video. Right now, just with working regular and a family and things, don't think I would need a whole whole lot. Though I have been playing madden more lately...lol.

But no, my system is a home built, AMD 5200 x2, 2 gb ddr2, dvd burner, 320 gb hd, media reader, 550 watt psu, etc. Just the video card was left over from another machine, got a good deal on it for like 15 bucks. 7300 LE. Not bad for what it is....but want better as well. What stunk was before this, had an older system, IDE drives the works....so yeah, been upgrading as I go. I think I may look into the 3850 though....by the way, 3650 looks like a good deal, but don't know anything about them, anyone have any info, or are any reviews out yet?

A higher clocked 256MB GTS would be better. You aren't going to push high res with fsaa where the 512MB would shine. There's a chance that 8600GT would beat the 256MB GTS in Crysis and COD4 at some settings as both seem to do better with 512MB, but I doubt it and if so would not be at playable settings.

Also, without fsaa the iceQ 512MB 2600XT turbo would be a little better. And as someone said, the 2900 pro 512MB or HD3850 much better. With either of those cards you are stepping up to a whole new level compared to the 8600GT, GTS, and 2600XT.

The HD 3650 is the same as the 2600, sometimes even a little slower. Probably better than the GT but not as good as the GTS.

for casual gaming the 512m 8600gt runs cod4 quite well in my wife's PC up to 1024x768 for online play

The 2900GT is about like the X1950 pro and 8600GTS. It's far behind the HD2900 PRO or HD3850. If you are at $130, you would be better to spend a bit more on one of those instead.

Yeah, the pro seems to come and go. The GT would need to be a $100 IMO to be worth buying. Firingsquad was the first I saw to sneak the GT into review charts: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] page14.asp

It was later included in their HD38x0 preview too.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] /page7.asp