Best PCI-Express card for $100-$130

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cuemasterfl

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I bought a new PC but it's PCI-Express so I can't use my old AGP card. What do you suggest in this price range?
 
IMHO, the EVGA 7600GT would be a good choice. It would cost you about $116 shipped. I bought this card for a buddy for his birthday. With this exact card, he benchmarked 5,800 on 3dmark 05 ( with a socket 939 3800 X2 cpu). I was really surprized by this card and my friend is really happy with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130062

If you're and ATI fan, the Saphire X1950GT at $134.99 ( $104.99 AR ) would also be good choice. ( I'm not a big fan of rebates. )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102034

I'm just curious, where can you buy an X1900GT for $100, or a 7900GS for $110 ???
 
The EVGA 7600GT does look like a good choice. My old AGP card was only a 9700 Pro. Will the EVGA 7600GT outperform the 9700 pro or are they comparable?

Waveforme said:
IMHO, the EVGA 7600GT would be a good choice. It would cost you about $116 shipped. I bought this card for a buddy for his birthday. With this exact card, he benchmarked 5,800 on 3dmark 05 ( with a socket 939 3800 X2 cpu). I was really surprized by this card and my friend is really happy with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130062

If you're and ATI fan, the Saphire X1950GT at $134.99 ( $104.99 AR ) would also be good choice. ( I'm not a big fan of rebates. )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102034

I'm just curious, where can you buy an X1900GT for $100, or a 7900GS for $110 ???
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The fs/ft forum here on h ardforum! just have to look and look and be fast and hope you arnt to fast at reading over references..
 
evga 8600gt from circuit city this week- $150 w/ $30 MIR.

Runs NWN2 with med. size textures, all eye candy on, at 1280x1024, very smooth. Go to large textures and it gets too choppy (memory bandwidth?).

I was in the same boat, kind of- had to get a single-slot card for my Dell box, couldn't get a 8800GTS because it wouldn't fit and the deal from circuit city sealed it. I figure it would be better than a 7600gt no matter what and it looks to be similar in performance to a 7900gs, but w/ DX10 support.
 
Thw 7900 GS and never look back.

it is amazing and may i reccomend a zalman if you are gonna over clock.
 
If you are overclocker and want DX10 then definately 8600GT from circuit city. If you are crazy overclocker like me, then buy 8600GT and VOLT MOD it to 1GHZ Core and beat the hell out of any card out there under $200. :D

You got my point!
 
annaconda said:
If you are overclocker and want DX10 then definately 8600GT from circuit city. If you are crazy overclocker like me, then buy 8600GT and VOLT MOD it to 1GHZ Core and beat the hell out of any card out there under $200. :D

You got my point!
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Did you get one and get a 1GHz OC?

I'm at 681/719, now the core clock goes higher and memory hardly goes anywhere (I had a "driver crash" that killed the display and required manual restart). Before the crash, I was at 675 core 775 memory, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This is using the latest version of ntune, the 4/26 release.

Still, 681 MHz core is a lot better than the stock 540 MHz core and still runs around 52C indicated under load.
 
Sapphire's Radeon x1950GT is available at Newegg for $130-ish, but there's also a 30 dollar rebate.
 
cleanerPA said:
Did you get one and get a 1GHz OC?

I'm at 681/719, now the core clock goes higher and memory hardly goes anywhere (I had a "driver crash" that killed the display and required manual restart). Before the crash, I was at 675 core 775 memory, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This is using the latest version of ntune, the 4/26 release.

Still, 681 MHz core is a lot better than the stock 540 MHz core and still runs around 52C indicated under load.
Click to expand...

You need to do the pencil volt mod to get those insane OC, but you'll also need a multimeter to take readings as you do it.
 
I'm going with the EVGA 7600GT. I'm not a hard core gamer. I just want something mainly to handle WoW (and a few other games) and to improve my "Aero" experience.

Processor AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ 4.9
Memory (RAM) 1.87 GB 4.4 (I have 2GB of RAM but the onboard video is using some)
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE 2.3
Gaming graphics 399 MB Total available graphics memory 2.6
Primary hard disk 158GB Free (225GB Total) 5.4

As you can see, my scores are all good except for the graphics.
 
7600gt? wow horrible choice.. i bought a few for 70$ each and was highly disappointed.. get the 8600gt if you want to waste funds i see them go for 130$

also upgrading the secondary gfx to a pci card would let you use your memory
 
just ditchin the crappy on-board will do wonders,but dont get anything less than a 7600.....or get an 8xxx series or wait for the ATI low-end - mid R600's to hit the streets,whennever that may be:rolleyes: ....


btw the 8600gts put me @ 5.9 & 5.6....which really doesn't mean anything tho.....

run some games and record your FPS before and after the upgrade
 
killster1 said:
7600gt? wow horrible choice.. i bought a few for 70$ each and was highly disappointed.. get the 8600gt if you want to waste funds i see them go for 130$

also upgrading the secondary gfx to a pci card would let you use your memory
Click to expand...

7600GT is a great card. It plays all of todays games on medium to high and in the price range is hard to beat if your budget cant allow for MIR.

Your looking at it very wrong you got a card for $70 thats current and plays todays games fairly well and you where disappointed?!?! You tell me what exactly you expected for that price?
 
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