Help me beat a dead horse

[Cyan]

It's been quite some time since I've come here.

Sup all?

Anyway, I have a GeForce 4 Ti something or other. I want to get a DX9 card so I can play them new games all nice and sparkly.

My system is a Athlon XP 2100+ Nvidia Nforce2 Mobo (I think, the one with SATA) Audigy card.

I mainly use my computer to output video to my TV and my setup now works really quite well. So I don't really want to screw that up.

But I'm interested (sorry to drag on) in doing a mini-upgrade, just the card - and see where that gets me. Problem is I'm saving up all my dough for a spakin new DX10 system so I don't want to spend a lot of money. I want a performance boost with good vid out and DX9 features that are useable and an Nvidia card. There are like 5 different kinds of Geforce 6*** blah blah cards out and I've no idea what to get.

Thanks for help... if you got this far.

[Midknyte]

A 6600GT would be a good card for the price. They are getting super cheap now.

what is your $$ limit?

[Cyan]

A 6600GT would be a good card for the price. They are getting super cheap now.

what is your $$ limit?

Oh... limit smi..mit..? Not so much limit as worth. Card A is 10% faster than card B but costs 40% more. Not so smart for a mini-grade. I'll look into it!

[Cyan]

Hey hey, That card looks pretty chill. Newegg shows that 6800's run around the same price range and with 12 pipes as opposed to 8, something up there? I also wonder, it looks like the 6800GT is sorta the last AGP card of the range (before becoming laughably massive ala 6800Ultra) would that for 300$ be super duper as compared to a 6800 or 6600GT?

Thanks for the help!

Oh! Oh! and is there something special about OpenGL 2.0 support?

Boy, I've really been outa the game for a while.

[Midknyte]

your cpu is too weak for a 6800GT. you would need to upgrade that to get the full benefit of that card. if you don't plan to mod or overclock your card, the 6600GT and 6800NU are about the same.

the 6800NU has the potential to unlock 4 extra pipes (see the best of video sticky). again, you would be cpu limited even if you can unlock the extra pipes.

6600GTs also overclock like a beast, so that would be another option.

An X800XL is comparable to a 6800GT also, if you don't like nvidia.

[Cyan]

Thanks for helpin, I went with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150106 that. Since the rebate matches the lower costing 6600GT's and with 6800 performance.

[CaptHandsome]

You wont be disappointed. For the priceerformance, you cant beat it. I wasnt even able to unlock the the 4 pipes, but did get the shader. Still OCs just as well as the 6600s too. You'll be happy.