Best 4x AGP compatible video card for under $200? (for TES:Oblivion)

[Talenvor]

I hope this is the right forum. I am looking to upgrade my Ti4200 before Oblivion comes out and need some advice on what card to get.

I don't want to spend more than $200. My power supply is 450w so that shouldn't be an issue. I do have an older motherboard and it is a 4x AGP so the video card needs to be compatible with it.

I've looked on newegg and like the Geforce 6600GT 256MB. But then there are all sorts of 6800 series cards and I don't know exactly what to look for in terms of 'bang for your buck"

If it matters, I'm on a 1gig, 2.5mhz P4.

Thanks.

[Dis]

To be honest any 6800 series card GT and beyond is probably going to be bottlenecked by your processor. I would stick to a 6600 GT or even a Radeon 9800 XT/Pro. No point in dropping 250 on a AGP card that is already obsolete, I would keep your budget at 150 or below.

[Eomer]

Games these days aren't really pushing CPU's, it almost entirely the GPU that's holding them back. Even if it is CPU bottlenecked, you can always up the resolution if the GPU still has headroom (resolution doesn't increase CPU load for the most part).

I'd look into a 6800GS, I believe they're available in AGP.

[Lancastro]

I bought an eVGA 6800 before the GS came out... I have a similar setup to yours, and I love what the upgrade has done for me.

You can also unlock 4 pipes and 1 vertex shader with the AGP 6800... something you can't do with the 6600GT. That will boost it over anything the 6600GT is capable of.

[Luthair]

I would imagine AGP at 4x rather than 8x (which has been standard for a long time now) will be a big bottleneck for any graphics card. I would wait for Oblivion to be released and see how it runs for people with 9800 Pros.

[Eomer]

AGP speed has little to no effect on performance in the vast majority of cases. If your video card is streaming textures over the AGP bus instead of out of it's main memory, your frame rate will be piss poor no matter how fast the AGP bus is operating.

[Talenvor]

Thanks for the information everyone. I feel I have a bit more information now since I knew basically nothing about this topic when I started it.

I looked on newegg for some other cards and here is what I found:

6800GT - no AGP versions
6800GS 256MB - is around $225
6800 128mb - cheaper than the 6600GT (costs around $160). Is it better?
6600GT 256MB - still seems like the best option at $180.

Am I wrong?

[makist]

Might want to consider the new AGP 7800 Nvidia released

[The Dauntless One]

some 6800 agps can unlock the extra pipelines but i am not sure about the new ones
6800GS the best bang for the buck for agp...get leadtek extreme or the xfx xxx versions...as fast if not faster than a 6800 ultra
7800gs too expensive...if u buy something like that go upgrade to pcie

[Citten]

Originally Posted by Talenvor

Thanks for the information everyone. I feel I have a bit more information now since I knew basically nothing about this topic when I started it.

I looked on newegg for some other cards and here is what I found:

6800GT - no AGP versions
6800GS 256MB - is around $225
6800 128mb - cheaper than the 6600GT (costs around $160). Is it better?
6600GT 256MB - still seems like the best option at $180.

Am I wrong?

I'd go with a Nvidia 6600, GT optional I guess. I currently put a 6600 on my secondary computer and for how much i spent, like 100, it was well worth the money.

don't spend anything over 130, agp is old tech, and you'll probably want to upgrade your motherboard in a year or less so you can go PCI-e anyway.

Get a 256 mb 6600 6600gt, that's your best option - not to mention from tomshardware and several other places, they all pretty much agree.

Interesting you mention this because i was just reading a article on best cards for price ranges.

[Awanka]

6800 GS. You can probably find them for under $200 on Ebay.

[The Dauntless One]

Originally Posted by Raglaum

I'd go with a Nvidia 6600, GT optional I guess. I currently put a 6600 on my secondary computer and for how much i spent, like 100, it was well worth the money.

don't spend anything over 130, agp is old tech, and you'll probably want to upgrade your motherboard in a year or less so you can go PCI-e anyway.

Get a 256 mb 6600 6600gt, that's your best option - not to mention from tomshardware and several other places, they all pretty much agree.

Interesting you mention this because i was just reading a article on best cards for price ranges.

tomshardware makes my eyes bleed
and if you go for 6600 series DO NOT get 256...it will slow down
and btw...agp is old tech but not obsolete...ever heard of 7800GS?

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by The Dauntless One

tomshardware makes my eyes bleed
and if you go for 6600 series DO NOT get 256...it will slow down
and btw...agp is old tech but not obsolete...ever heard of 7800GS?

Yea, it's a piece of shit designed to milk money from people still clinging to dead technology. Sure, it's got a 7800 core, but same has the same number of pipes and shaders as the 6800GT, which results in a card that's only a slight bit faster and still costs $300. In terms of 'bang for the buck' it would be hard to come up with a worse card than the 7800GS.

To answer the original question: if you absolutely cannot get rid of AGP, then go with either the plain 6800 (if you want to roll the dice and try to unlock it to 6800GT pipes/shaders/core speed, memory will never come close because it's only DDR) or a 6600GT 128MB. Another option would be to find someone parting out their old system and pick up a 6800GT that way.

Spending any more than that is insane when you could just replace the cpu/motherboard and video card for $400-500.

[Talenvor]

Seems when anyone recommends the 6600GT they say 128MB instead of 256MB. Any reason why? It's about a $30 difference and one person even said the 256 is slower? Can anyone clarify?

[Zuuljin]

I believe its because the 256 uses DDR, and the 128 uses GDDR3, which is faster RAM. So while it wont hold as much, its faster to access and is an actual improvement over the 256 version.