Need opinions/facts on video card comparisions

Hi. I just bought a Dell Deminsion C521 the other day from a guy off of craigslist. It came with an ATI x1350 pro HM 256mb pcie x16 graphics card and to be honest it wasn't what I wanted. The tower is pretty gimped when it comes to upgrading so I was limited to half height video cards w/ low power comsumption and a low budget. (-$50) I eventually broke down and bought an Nvidia 8600gt low profile card from compgeeks. (http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=188-03N19-00CEV&cat=VCD) I was wondering if I would see any performance gains with this video card. I know its a generation up from the x1350 and it has GDDR3 memory as opposed to GDDR2.

The rest of my system specs:
AMD Athlon 64 x2 5200+ (@ 2.9ghz)
8gb DDR-2 Ram @ 800mhz
Stock power supply (300wtt. 12v.+ 18a.)
PCIe x16 1.0
160gb SATA hd
Nvidia nforce 410/430 mb



Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

IT`ll be a useful jump, just do n`t expect to play high end games at anything other than low settings and low resoloutions though.
FYI the Egg has quite a few low-profile cards on its inventory including a 9600GT and a 9800! Of course you`ll need to upgrade the PSU for them, just thought I`d mention it

Yes there is a better low profile card with similar power consumption, the low profile DDR3 HD 4650. It doesnt need the power adapter as any more powerful card (except 4670 which isnt low profile yet), and only consumes 55w vs the 47w of the 8600 GT.

Now I cant find if the 8600GT you referenced is DDR2 or DDR3 (i couldnt even find it on aopen's site), but the 4650 comes in both flavors.

You can get a DDR3 4650 for $80, which outperforms a DDR3 8600GT, and a DDR2 4650 for $50, which im not sure if it beats a DDR3 8600GT but definately beats a DDR2 8600GT.

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102829

Apollo Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 $80
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814140107

Note: I am referencing Toms Chart for performance references
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 218-6.html

Now considering your 8600GT is only listed at $37, im not sure if the $80 price tag is worth it for a DDR3 4650. If anyone can find reviews on the DDR2 4650 vs 8600GT you may be able to justify the extra $13.

I did some researching and I found some reviews on both the DDR2 and DDR3 versions of the 4650.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] nce/6.html
This review compares a DDR2 4650 to a DDR3 9500GT which is a rebadged 8600GT. Usually the 9500GT outperforms it.

http://www.driverheaven.net/review [...] 1&pageid=5
This review compares a DDR3 4650 to a DDR3 9500GT, again a rebadged 8600GT. In every game except Crysis, in which neither are playable, the 4650 gets about an extra 20-30fps.

Considering the DDR3 4650 costs double the 8600GT you may be better off, especially since you originally said you didnt want to spend over $50 and if your $38 8600GT is DDR3 it'll outperform the $50 DDR2 4650. It seems Ive almost countered my orginal post

If that 8600GT is DDR3, you found a REALLY good deal because I actually have the same card in my wifes Dell Vostro and the cheapest I could find was $70 on amazon, which makes me nervous of yours. I havnt tried Oblivion on her pc, but I think with your specs a DDR3 8600GT would play Oblivion nicely at that resolution.

Wow im tired of typing DDR.

^ get yourself a DDR3 4670 for around $70, or even better a 4830 for around $80-$90

^ Oh, I see....crap.

yea I found it here -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814162016

but they want an arm and a leg for it. 129.99 is 2.5x's over my pathetic budget.
maybe when I see the prices go down or I don't have as many bills...

Sparkle has their version of it too, but its still 84.99. Not a bad price really.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814187060

And here's their 9800gt version going for 114.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814187061

Yeah Ive had my eye on that since it first showed up in March.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/galaxy [...] l?doc=6706

http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia [...] l?doc=6499

Only 59 watts! Thats pretty close to the 4650's 51w but its so more powerful. Its even lower than the 4670. I havnt even seen a full size low power 9600 GT, let alone a low profile.

jtsanda, i have used like 10 different search engines getting the same verbatum info about your 8600GT, 188-03N19-00CEV. None of them say what type of memory, just 256mb. Its driving me nuts

yea.. the newegg cards i was looking at where the closest thing i could find to what you where talking about. i seen a few reviews on there that said they run good on crappy power supplies, but i looked at the requirements of the galaxy you posted and it says 350wtts, 26a. I have 300wtts with 18a. weeeee totally garbage. I think i'm going to save up and buy a new moboard, case, and psu. that way i won't be so limited to the junk i have now. does anyone know of any good motherboards that support crossfire/sli and is cheap???

hah.. yea now you know how i feel. the only way to find out is wait till it gets here. when that happens i'll be sure to let everyone know how bad it sucks.lol