Graphics card advice

[Celt_Belfast]

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X800 XL ICEQII 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (RX800XL-AGPVICEQ) (GX-037-HT)

Basically how good is it and will I get the best out of it with an Athlon (Bartin) Xp 3200, 1.5GB RAM, Asus A7N8X-X motherboard.

I've an AGP board, can't afford to upgrade everything at the moment (I assume I would end up having to change processor, board and memory as well a graphics card if I want to use PCI Express). So I've been looking around at various cards - I've been hoping for about £150 or less, though this is a lil bit more. Currently using a Ti4200.

In terms of games I tend to play - Halflife 2, Eve, Counterstrike, and in the near future likely to be playing Dungeons & Dragons Online (which recommends a 7800GT with 256Mb for running it with the high-res texture pack, I know none of these cards as stock will come near to that).

Cards I have been looking at:
6600GT, in under budget but not the fastest also basic one comes with only 128MB ram, the 256 version is not much cheaper than the above card.
6800 - bog standard version, maybe try unlocking it (although AGP versions of this seem to be rather hard to come across at the moment online)
6800GS - designed as a PCIE card, adapted to cope with AGP - runs substantially slower than its PCIE counterpart so not sure how it stacks up as most reviews based on the PCIE version.
HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X800 XL ICEQII 256MB DDR3 - again couldn't find any reviews for the AGP version, but the reviews for the PCIE one were pretty good, and the cooling system would be useful too. But it does lack Shader 3.0 support, which may or may not slow it down in any games that may use this.

So comments and suggestions please

 

[benjo]

Out of those cards, the 6800GS + The X800XL are about the same, however the 6800GS can be overclocked to a lot faster speeds and should outperform the X800XL

 

[Celt_Belfast]

Out of those cards, the 6800GS + The X800XL are about the same, however the 6800GS can be overclocked to a lot faster speeds and should outperform the X800XL

That based on the PCIE or AGP version of the 6800GS? - think I read somewhere that the AGP version pf the 6800GS isn't as overclockable as the PCIE version.

If it was the PCIE versions I'd take it in a heartbeat, but the AGP one is a good bit mroe expensive and also a good bit less powerful as its core is running about 75Ghz behind the PCIE version.

Decisions, decisions *sigh*

 

[v0n]

That depends - my 6800GS unlocked without any problems to 16 pipes/6 shaders and runs @ 400/1050mhz which makes it slightly faster than overclocked X800 XL but with advantage in newer engines (Q4, D3) and those that will take advantage of shader 3.0. 6800GS AGP however is a mixed bag though, no guarantees that yours will overclock or fully unlock.