Stopgap "upgrade"

SoulkeepHL

SoulkeepHL

2[H]4U
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Jun 16, 2001
Messages
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I've most assuredly fallen off the edge of the earth when it comes to keeping up with video cards over the past few years, so I'm in a position where I need some advice.

I've got a GF4600 that's dying on me, and I'm not planning on building a new rig for a year or so, so I'm in the need for something cheap. The system itself is a only an AMD 2200+ on an early A7N8X (nf2) motherboard, so I just want something that will atleast keep me on par with the 4600, which I suppose should be easy at this point. I just don't want to cheap way out and find out that the new Nvidia OMG9000 budget card actually uses an older core (much like they used to do). And just to play it safe, I'd prefer another nvidia card, as I seem to remember the nf2 not playing all that well with certain ati cards.

Edit: I'm sort of figuring that something like a "lowly" 6200 would do me fine, is this a proper assumption?
 
SoulkeepHL said:
I've most assuredly fallen off the edge of the earth when it comes to keeping up with video cards over the past few years, so I'm in a position where I need some advice.

I've got a GF4600 that's dying on me, and I'm not planning on building a new rig for a year or so, so I'm in the need for something cheap. The system itself is a only an AMD 2200+ on an early A7N8X (nf2) motherboard, so I just want something that will atleast keep me on par with the 4600, which I suppose should be easy at this point. I just don't want to cheap way out and find out that the new Nvidia OMG9000 budget card actually uses an older core (much like they used to do). And just to play it safe, I'd prefer another nvidia card, as I seem to remember the nf2 not playing all that well with certain ati cards.

Edit: I'm sort of figuring that something like a "lowly" 6200 would do me fine, is this a proper assumption?
Click to expand...

Best thing to do is look for benchmarks.

Look for the 6600 DDR2, or a 6600GT.
 
Borgschulze said:
Best thing to do is look for benchmarks.

Look for the 6600 DDR2, or a 6600GT.
Click to expand...

Heh, I'm trying to, but as 5xxx series is barely showing up on benchmark roundups, I'm having trouble finding something to compare.

And as I eluded to, I'm trying to spend as little as possible, the 4600 does enough as it is to get me by, and really, the cpu/mb are probably a big bottle neck at this point as well. I just don't want to end up worse off (Read: A $60 video card to make do with would make me happy).
 
SoulkeepHL said:
Heh, I'm trying to, but as 5xxx series is barely showing up on benchmark roundups, I'm having trouble finding something to compare.

And as I eluded to, I'm trying to spend as little as possible, the 4600 does enough as it is to get me by, and really, the cpu/mb are probably a big bottle neck at this point as well. I just don't want to end up worse off (Read: A $60 video card to make do with would make me happy).
Click to expand...
Don't waste your time even thinking about the FX series.
 
Borgschulze said:
Don't waste your time even thinking about the FX series.
Click to expand...

I should have clarified, I was trying to see how the 4600 that I have stacks up to a modern card when i said that the 5xxx's are barely showing up on roundups. At this point, it sounds like a 62/66xx card.
 
SoulkeepHL said:
I should have clarified, I was trying to see how the 4600 that I have stacks up to a modern card when i said that the 5xxx's are barely showing up on roundups. At this point, it sounds like a 62/66xx card.
Click to expand...
Yep, check out the 6600 DDR2 though, it's a solid card for the price.
 
i run a 6600 vanilla. they run all the current game fairly well with some tweaking of settings and ocing them with rivatuner is fairly easy to do. it could surely hold you over until your ready for those directx 10 cards next year.
 
This article will give you a good method by which to compare the cards.

I'd say go for a vanilla 6600. It'll give you better performance than that 4600, and will hold you over easily until you're looking to upgrade. However, if you'd like something less expensive, but still a little quicker than your 4600, have a look for a 6200. This 6200 looks decent, but make sure that you avoid any of the 6200s with "TurboCache."
 
I also reccomend a 6600 vanilla. You should be able to run most games at semi-playable rates with it and the rest of your system. They're almost twice as much as the 6200, but considering you want to hold your system for another year, it would definitely be worth it to go with a 6600 and possibly a 6600gt. I run a 6600gt and it's very, very good for it's price/performance ratio. The 6800gs is quickly taking over the price/performance winner but the 6600gt runs just about everything out and I run most games on medium settings.

If you go with a 6200 (avoid TurboCache as previously mentioned) I expect you'll really dislike the performance, and your cpu could go a little further in terms of bottlenecking. Hopefully you can get a 6600, as I think you'll be very satisfied with performance.

Good luck! Budget gaming for life =)
 
Thanks for all the input. Turns out my video card seems to be fine. It's actually the psu that's dying. The cpu and gpu had to be under full load before problems started happening, which made me think it was the video card. Turns out the 6200 i got to test things out just draws less power than the older, larger 4600.
 
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