Upgrading old rig - vid card recommendations

S

SarCastro

Weaksauce
Joined
May 20, 2002
Messages
112
i'm upgrading my old P4 1.6 to an Athlon 64 x2 3800+ here in the next week or so. I'll be getting a 6150 motherboard w/ onboard d-sub and dvi, which will tide me over until I get a new video card and lcd monitor. I was wondering what would be a good video card for gaming with the following requirements:

- Quiet fan or heatpipe only (for the SO's sake) :p
- Decent enough to run Doom 3, Far Cry, UT 2004, and Civ 4 @ 1280 at a decent framerate.
- Under $150

Doesn't matter to me if it is an ATI or nVidia card. I was thinking the XFX 6600 w/DDR2 memory and overclocking it. Any other suggestions?
 
How fast are they compared to each other? How do they compare to the 6600's, 6600GTs in terms of speed?
 
I don't think those cards will run at 1280. I have a GeForce 6800 (faster than the 6600 at least, unsure about the X1600XT or Pro) and I can't run those games at decent frame rates at 1280 (well at least Doom 3, and Quake 4, and HL2). I think UT2K4 can do it though, I have to remember my settings.
Jason
 
X1600's are comparable to Radeon 9800's I thought. If you want good Doom 3 performance, go with an nVidia 6800 NU (Although pushing for the GS would be well worth the extra moola) or look at an X800 Pro'ish level card for ATi.

Realistically though, even with that great CPU you'd be hard pressed to run 1280 at a decent framerate with a sub $150 card without leaving alot of the graphics at medium or less.
 
I posted this late last night, so I forgot the game I was most concerned about: World of Warcraft :p Will either the 6600 or x1600 run that at 1280 at a decent speed?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top