Simple needs, too many cards to choose from!

[N9ne]

My requirements:

- Watch some HD stuff.
- Play the occassional game - as long as it looks good, I'm fine, I'm not really a gamer.
- The rest is just the usual stuff.

Ideally, I'd like to run games like say, Call of Duty etc. well, but I'm not fussed about it being great. The last game I played was Battlefield 2 and I was okay with how that was running on my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro! However, I would like an improvement, particularly with more demanding new games.

Although I'm not a gamer, I'd like to have a decent enough card to run recent/new games well. I don't need the best or great performance. As long as it works.

More importantly, it should cost less than £75 incl. VAT.

What should I buy? (NB. needs to be PCI-E)

 

[Tute]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-055-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=356

Simple choice. Excellent card, excellent price, and it should give a really nice boost from your 9800 Pro.

[Edit] Didn't think of the 8600 range, i'd go with what the others suggested.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

8600gt would be the best choice for that price range.

 

[shine]

The cheapest 8600 on OC is around £78 so you may want to consider that as Cyber-Mav suggested.

 

[markk]

is there a lot of difference between the 8600 and 7600gt? (apart from DX10)

 

[jaykay]

is there a lot of difference between the 8600 and 7600gt? (apart from DX10)

Purevideo 2 helps the cpu a lot when playing hd videos. The 7600 doesnt have that.

 

[helmutcheese]

The 6000 and 7000 and high end 8800 series are Purevideo (although not Purevideo2) the lower 8000 like 8600 and 8500 series are Purevideo2 (they came out later, and the 8800Ultra (again came out later) may be as its a Rev 3 core and mines seems to have CPU use at same figures as the reviews of Purevideo2