Reccomendations for graphics card.

[Craig Tucker]

Built my daughters a PC each for christmas, one has basic onboard graphics and the other has an old ATI Rage AGP card. Also bought a copy of simpsons hit and run which my daughter and I are addicted to, and I really dont play games.

Anyway, I need to upgrade the graphics cards to be able to play 3D games, and rather than just get one that will play this game, I would like cards that will likely play other games we may get in the future, GTA3, king kong etc, so a DX9 card.

Budget is around £50 per card, I am looking at the Sapphire Radeon 9600 AGP X8 256MB DDR

However, not being a gamer I would appreciate input from any members with more experience on this subject.

Cheers

[rallynavvie]

That one will work well. You may also want to check out the entry-level cards from the current generation like the ATi X300 or the GeForce 6200. Just be sure it's AGP like you said.

I'd check the stats on those two cards too. I think the nVidia one has a hardware decoder FWIW.

[Craig Tucker]

Thanks rallynavvie, ebuyer only show the X300 with PCI-E, looking at the 6200 now

[Treebeard]

the 6200 has pretty poor performance, I would steer clear of it. I personally think the 9600xt would be the best price/performance for around that price. Here is a large reveiw of AGP video cards and how they stack up against each other in different games.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/10/04/vga_charts_iv/index.html

[Craig Tucker]

Cheers treebeard, I am leaning towards the 9600

[Craig Tucker]

OK one more question, would I be better off going for the 9600 with 256MB or the 9600 pro with 128MB

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=14576795252&action=c2hvd19wcm9kd...duct_uid=74653

[Treebeard]

If you can spring for the XT version I would.

I laugh everytime I see the greeting 'Cheers' in here. Ya rarely hear that here. I love it.

[Treebeard]

IMO, I would get the pro or XT version. with XT being slightly better than pro.

[Craig Tucker]

XT is bit too pricey, but the standard with 256MB is around the same price as the pro with 128MB

Not sure which of these 2 to plump for.

Cheers

[Treebeard]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/108/8/

looks like the pro outperforms the 256mb version which I thought it would do.

go pro, your kids will be happy

[Craig Tucker]

Great, the pro with 128MB is actually a couple of quid cheaper as well.

[Craig Tucker]

This seems like a good deal, and can be clocked to a 9600 pro
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=14581751105&action=c2hvd19wcm9kd...duct_uid=62209