graphic card upgrade

[Sonic_Reducer]

i'm wondering about making an upgrade i have a ti 4200 deluxe from asus that let me play some gamse on a decent quality not very good but enough and i'm wondering about making an upgrade to a XFX 6600gt with 256mb is this card any good anybody knows if it behaves nice. and it's a good idea for an upgrade, i'm not a heavy gamer but i like gaming once in a while.

my system
mobo Asus p4c800
p4 3.0 prescott
1gb memory kingston
hd 120gb from western digital

 

[Godiva]

btw, you might want to post that under graphics cards, not sound cards, and yes the upgrade is worth it.

 

[Anoobis]

I wouldn't spend the money on the 256MB version. Save your money and get the 128MB Version. I have one and it works great on most games on high - moderate settings. The extra RAM is usually a manufacturers sales gimmick to trick people into thinking they're getting something twice as good.

It's a nice card and the difference will be night and day compared to your TI 4200.

And yeah, like Godiva said...you should've posted this in Graphics Cards forum.

 

[astrallite]

Fair mistake, everyone makes it.

As for graphics card RAM, this generally depends on the resolution you play at. Higher res will require larger caches for less "in-game" area loading (read: computer induced lag). If you play at 1280 or below, sometimes this might not be that big of an issue.

On the flip side, for a single player rpg, for example Oblivion, if it's programmed as poorly as Elderscrolls 3 with lack of occlusion culling (although they did use an older version of the NetImmerse engine), will suffer from area loading no matter how much RAM you have, since it's an "open world."

Given that the 6600GTs I've seen sell at around $130 these days, you might wanna look at the ATI Radeon 850XT. It should be a sizeable difference in speed for only $40 more ($169). Read up on the reviews to see if it's the card for you:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102483

 

[Anoobis]

The X850XTs an excellent card but he needs an AGP card. I was going to recommend a 6800GS, but that's kinda pricey compared to the 6600GT and wasn't sure if the OP wanted to spend that much. I noticed that the XFX 6600GT is now on Auto Notify with Newegg, so you might want to go the eVGA route. The eVGA is cheaper and they also make quality cards.

Another good option would be a X1600PRO. It supports SM 3.0 like the 6600GT and is a little cheaper. I'm not sure you will find a 128MB version. I've noticed that ATI often makes more cards in 256MB versions than 128MB versions.

Both cards stack up well. The X1600PRO has 12 pipes while the eVGA 6600GT only has 8. However, the eVGA 6600GT has 900MHZ GDDR3 while the X1600PRO has 800 MHZ GDDR2. There's not a huge difference between GDDR2 and GDDR3, but the faster memory clocks can make a good difference. Both have 128-bit memory interfaces.

Again, either card will be a huge jump compared to the TI4200 (which was fine card in its day).

 

[Sonic_Reducer]

thankx everybody and i'm sorry i made a mistake i should a posted in graphics my bad , i'm going to check the x1600xt

 

[jallinder]

I went from a Ti4200 128mb card to the 6600gt oc 128mb by BFG and saw a major difference. It was a good upgrade for the price. Since you are not a major gamer, I would say that this would be a nice uprgrade for the least amount of money. Check Tom's Hardware guides to compare for your final choice. Good Luck!

 

[Anoobis]

thankx everybody and i'm sorry i made a mistake i should a posted in graphics my bad , i'm going to check the x1600xt

Be careful, I don't think you can get a X1600XT in AGP. I think you can only get the X1600PRO in AGP. Make sure you don't buy a PCI-E by mistake.