AGP upgrade question

[jeggsy]

Hi all...

Got a homebuilt system with the following specs and was thinking about upgrading my graphics card:-

Abit NF7s V1.2 & AMD Athlon 3.0GHz CPU at stock speeds (Nforce2 chipset).
2x 512Mb Corsair PC3200's at stock settings.
Asus 9999 Geforce 6800 256Mb AGP graphics card.
Seagate 320Gb 7200.10 IDE HD.
Pioneer 16x DVD-RW & Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM.
FSP400-60PFN 400w Power supply - +12v = 15.0A's
Windows XP Pro SP2.

I was looking at the Gainward Goldensample Geforce 7600GT 256Mb AGP card but was wondering if it would be much of an improvement over my old 6800.
To me the 7600GT would be an ideal upgrade but just wasn't sure if it's worth doing.

I didn't really want an ATI x1950 or a Geforce 7800 series. Even though they might be quicker than the 7600GT, because they have higher power requirements and that would mean swapping out my power supply and adding more cost.

The plan is that this would be my last upgrade on this system before I buy a whole new rig in a years time.

Any advice would be great.

Cheers
Paul

 

[Will_3rd]

Check out the VGA charts at Tom's Hardware

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html

But I would think the 7600 would be a good choice as any other cards could be bottlenecked by your CPU.

 

[Will_3rd]

What CPU do you have? a 3000+? it actually runs at 2.2Ghz

 

[MoD_Callidus]

Asus 9999 Geforce 6800 256Mb AGP graphics card

the above if unlocked and clocked won't see a big leap to the 7600gt, try to grab a bargain offa MM possibly 7800 will see you right. bad time to buy though as newer tech's about to hit!

If you can hold out a few weeks you'll find some genuine steals on MM

 

[ACESHIGH]

Use rivatuner to see if you can unlock any pipes on the 6800, it could possibly get to 6800Ultra specs (same as 7600GT).

If it cannot unlock any pipes at all then the 7600GT would be a good upgrade.

 

[jeggsy]

Cheers guys for your advice.

Think I might of found somebody at work who would buy my old card so that would offset the cost of my new upgrade

Think I've narrowed it down to either the Gainward 7600GT Goldensample or the XFX 7600GT xxx extreme as both these cards are clocked slightly faster than standard cards for only a few extra £££'s.

One thing I did notice when looking into the specs of these 7600GT cards. How come some PCIe versions of these cards are clocked higher that the AGP ones ???? Surely it's the same GPU chip used in both types ???

Cheers
Paul