Which budget graphics card?

[Trojan]

Hi all

Currently looking at building a cheap gaming rig and am wanting some advice on what graphics card to go with. I'm looking at between £60 and £100 and have seen a fair few cards within this budget, but I haven't been able to find any reviews comparing them. The cards I've been looking at then are as follows:

PCI-X Geforce 6600 GT 128Mb ~£90
PCI-X X1600 Pro 256Mb ~ £85
2nd hand AGP Radeon 9800 Pro/XT 256Mb ~ £65

How do the new budget cards compare to the older top end card? I know having PCI-Express would give me more upgrade potential in the future but I'm not particularly interested in that right now. I'm more interested in how the cards perform against each other.

Therefore does anybody have any decent benchmarks or articles comparing the cards? Also, in your opinion, which would be the better card to go for in pure performance terms?

Thanks

 

[semi-pro waster]

I think that the cards you have listed do perform roughly in order of price, to give you another choice I'd say go for the Powercolour X800 GTO16 as it is faster than all of them at ~£95 or alternatively if you look in the clearance section there should be an X800 GTO 256mb for ~£75 which is also a very good card. Both my suggestions are PCI-E, do you already have a PCI-E motherboard or is the card choice going to make you decide between an AGP or PCI-E motherboard? As a general rule PCI-E graphics cards offer better value for money.

 

[Lanz]

For pci-e under £100 a X800XL / X800 GTO16 are good value. So is the 7600GS.

For under £60 the X800 GTO 128MB is good.

I think the 6600GTs are overpriced now and arent a good buy.

 

[PinkFloyd]

I have a Radeon X800XL for sale here at £80
of the ones suggested so far though I would take the X800GTO16/XL, albeit costing a little more.