Best graphics card for pentium 4/660 LGA775... 3.6ghz PCI-E X 16

Bottle necking isn't a game killer. It just means the card has to wait a cycle or so for the CPU to process the frame it sent. Yes, that's an old, slow, obsolete system, but a faster card will help immensely. Those cards should be fine. I would think even an HD 5770 or possibly even an HD 6790 might be acceptable. The CPU/buss may not keep up with it at every frame, but it's better to have more card that CPU... than the other way around. And remember, the resolution you game at makes the difference. You probably can go up to 1680x1050 with the cards mentioned above if you can live without all the eye candy.

Overclocking that old a system is above of my pay grade ;-)
Best someone else answers that one.

clutchc ......... Thanks for the response/advice!

Since my last post I found and bought a PNY GeForce 9600 GSO (my old 7800 GTX was 256mb w/430 core & 1200 memory clock ... this one is 768mb w/550 core & 1600 memory clock) ... Model # indicates it's a manufacturer "OC'd" version.

Chose the 9600 GSO over the Radeon 4670 'cause research indicated the nVidia GeGorce cards are much less CPU dependent than the Radeon series (also, it didn"t hurt that I got this PNY card super cheap on eBay for $35.00  

Am currently researching OC'ng software for the P4 & GPU (maybe I'll qualify for a pay raise   Thanks again, Jim

"Chose the 9600 GSO over the Radeon 4670 'cause research indicated the nVidia GeGorce cards are much less CPU dependent than the Radeon series"

I never heard that one about Nvidias being "less CPU dependent" than AMDs. If you can remember where you saw that, please pass it on.

I've been to so many tech/guru/geek sites doing "research" in the last few weeks that, truth is....I really don't remember which site offered up that info.

However, I do remember the gist of the article was.......They were purposely benchmarking various mid-level cards on an old P4 (thus, MY interest) system and discovered that the GeForce cards consistently outperformed their AMD/ATI counterparts (again, ON A P4) SIMPLY BECAUSE THE nVIDIA's WERE DRAMATICALLY LESS CPU DEPENDENT! Their research indicated (I can't remember the specifics) that it hand something to do with the AMD's (in this case the HD 4670) sucking resources from the Processor ... whereas the GeForce cards were much more architecture dependent and would deliver 100% without bottlenecking the CPU with subsequent performance loss.

That's my understanding anyway ... your mileage may vary. LOL Thanks, Jim