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Dark_Raven

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Depending on budget, what's available for up to $200 USD?

At the moment I can't see any AGP Nvidia cards at this price point. The 7600GS is in the $150 range, and the 7800GS is in the $250+ range.

 

For PCI-express, you could get a 7600GT for $114 after MIR (~$150 without rebates), a 7900GS for $212, or a 7900GT for $232 after MIR (~$260+ without rebates).

 

It's sometimes useful to keep the different suffix conventions in mind:

- For Nvidia, GX2 > GTX (or Ultra) > GT > GS > no suffix > XT > LE

- For ATi, XTX (or XT-PE) > XT > Pro > no suffix (not sure if they have these) > GT > SE

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Thanks, Meta, I had forgotten about the XL. Here's the updated order:

 

- Nvidia: GX2 > GTX (or Ultra) > GT > GS > no-suffix > XT > LE

- ATi: XTX (or XT-PE) > XT > XL > Pro > no-suffix > GT > SE

 

There's a huge difference between Nvidia's notion of GT and XT, and ATi's... they purposefully use them as a jab at each other. For Nvidia, the GT is a high-end part, very close to their top-end offering, while the XT is a very low-end part that is worse than the "vanilla" or no-suffix version. This is reversed for ATi. I believe Nvidia's the culprit here. Previously, Nvidia only had a GT and ATi only had an XT. When Nvidia decided to introduce a new low-end part, they used ATi's high-end suffix for it. A few weeks later, ATi returned the favor.

Edited by angshuman
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The good thing is as time goes by these AGP cards will get cheaper.

AGP card prices are actually quite higher than their PCIe counterparts, and this delta seems to be increasing if anything. A 7800GS AGP costs $250 and a faster 7900GS PCIe costs $212. Supply is low, demand still seems to be relatively high. People are refusing to spend the $50-odd bucks to buy a new motherboard, but they seem to be willing to pay a $50 premium to buy an inferior AGP card. :thumbsup:

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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814102609

 

I just bought this for my old machine. Replaced a Radeon 9600pro with it and so far I'm pretty happy.

 

I unlocked it to 16 pipelines and there is a slight performance boost. I didn't bother overclocking because I don't really play graphic intensive games.

 

I could play HL2 episode 1 at 1280x1024 with low AA and experienced little noticeable slowdown though it plays much smoother at lower resolutions...of course.

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A x700 is good enough for Oblivion so a X800 should be as well. You won't be able to get HDR lighting but you should get a decent frame rate with it on Bloom and x4 AA. Don't know about NWN 2 since it hasn't been released.

Edited by Judge Hades
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Yeah. Much like how for a while old SIMM modules were 2x the price of the old school PC-100 DIMMs, AGPs seem to be doing that as well.

 

They dipped a bit in price, but given that they aren't being made any more, they are becoming rare yet still in demand.

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I'm having quite a lot of success with my 7900GT. Oblivion plays pretty good with most of the features turned on, even in big watery bits. I need to consider turning things off if I have abig fight, but then most of those seem to be happening basically in the dark, so go figure. :o

"It wasn't lies. It was just... bull****"."

             -Elwood Blues

 

tarna's dead; processing... complete. Disappointed by Universe. RIP Hades/Sand/etc. Here's hoping your next alt has a harp.

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