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Looking for agp bargain <=120 for oblivion

luminous

luminous

luminous

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Joined
10 Apr 2006
Posts
376
Location
Edinburgh
Looking for best bang for buck/pipeline unlock potential card for running oblivion decently on my older system.
I know you guys would prob recommend upgrade by pci express route,which is tempting for £50 x800gto pcie,but i have an athlon xp barton 2600,1 gig pc 2700 ram and athlon isn`t supported for pcie which would mean whole new mobo,cpu and card which is a bit much just now(unless you can recommend me a cheap setup).
I`d be quite willing to take a b grade/2nd hand item for more power,its a pity i can`t access MM as i`m new would get one from there,i`m wary of ebay.
From what i read on other posts folks are saying 6600gt or x800gto are way to go unless you can think of something better.While we`re here do you think shader 3 makes that much of a difference? (since only the newer atis support it)
I could stretch to 130 if need be but cheaper the better since i`m a tight wad
Cheers
Al
 
If you're looking for a decent AGP card I'd be looking for a 6800LE or 6800NU that would hopefully unlock. With a budget of 120 quid though you could probably pick up a 6800GT second hand.
 
I'm waiting for an x1600pro to arrive, purely on the basis that ATi cards apparently perform well in Oblivion.
I've seen mixed reviews of these, but then people seem to be comparing them to 6600GTs which cost around £30 more.
Unfortuantely I'm yet to see a good comparison of how mid-range cards perform in Oblivion, only the high-end ones.
They seem to benchmark reasonably well for the price in shader heavy stuff such as FEAR and X3, hopefully this applies to Oblivion too.
I'll let you know how it goes when mine arrives.
 
I am very interested by those 1600pros on AGP. I know that they won't be 6800gs' or anything, but at that price they might just be what the docter ordered for my older PCs (especially as an upgrade from a 9800se).
 
Quote from a review:
"How much performance can you afford? In most of our tests the 6600GT was the slightly faster card but as we noted earlier this is the 256MB version of the card which carries a slightly higher price, pushing it into the $150 range. For some this quickly determines that the 6600GT won't be going home with you. However the 6600 and X1600 Pro are much closer in price and when it comes to performance the Sapphire X1600 Pro is easily the faster card."

(Although this was a review of the PCI-E versions, I can't imagine that there would be any difference on AGP)
 
Oblivion runs like a dog on all but the best systems. You'll be hard pushed to get `decent` performance on any AGP card.

Look for a 2nd hand X850XTPE or 6800GT/Ultra, anything less and you'll not be happy.
 
I'm expecting 1024x768, medium settings to be playable.
I would consider that to be plenty decent enough, considering the cost of the hardware.
Some of us can live without 8xAA and 16xAF you know, and nice though HDR is I'm not really sure it's worth an extra £200 :)

Of course, if I don't get at least that level of peroformance then I will be disappointed.
We will see when the card actually arrives.
 
Still looks like it will be playable, and it is the cheapest of the bunch tested there. I think the fact that in some situations it outperforms more expensive cards is quite impressive.
What is needed is a standard unit of measuring "bang for buck" :)
Foliage performance is a plus.
Not sure why they bothered testing those cards at some of the higher resolutions.

I'm not trying to be too defensive of the card, I'm not expecting it to be great. But it is cheap, and in that price range an extra £30 or so is a lot of money.
 
Yeah its good enough, I play at 1024/high/HDR, and it crawls when there's a lot of trees, but 90% of the time, like in citys and dungeons its fine.
 
Thanks Lanz,was waiting for them to do the mid range tests.Hmm,still not sure what to go for.Damn,just missed out on a 6800le.
Have spotted a GeForce 6800XT128MB 256bit DDR Memory for 72 notes,but being standard ddr would it hold it back in favour of an xfx GEFORCE 6600 GT 128MB DDR3 for the same price?
 
TBH, i wouldnt get any 128mb card now.

256mb DDR3 is a must, be it a 6600GT or 6800 or X800GTO.
 
tripitaka said:
Still looks like it will be playable.
I'm not expecting it to be great. But it is cheap, and in that price range an extra £30 or so is a lot of money.
Click to expand...
Still going to go for the 1600? interested to see how you get on with it
 
I think the only option for a decent AGP card for £100ish is now 2nd hand.

For £140'ish a 6800GS 256mb is pretty good (but still overpriced), as chances are it'll unlock the pipes to 6800Ultra performance.

e.g (OcUK GeForce 6800 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-035-OK) Price: £114.95 (£135.07 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Best off looking for a 6800GT for about £100 tho on the bay or members market.
 
luminous said:
Still going to go for the 1600? interested to see how you get on with it
Click to expand...

Will do. Had intially ordered a PCIE x800gto, but OCUK couldn't deliver to my work address so had to cancel :( . So I went for a 1600 instead.

Shame there's not a standard benchmark available for Oblivion, hopefully somebody will be able to make one.
 
e.g (OcUK GeForce 6800 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-035-OK) Price: £114.95 (£135.07 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Very tempted looks a good performer with a chance of unlock.Unfortunately can`t get into MM as i`m new here.
 
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