[9x19sig]

Hey, first time poster here with a dilemma. I purchased a few month old Dell (I know, I know) for very cheap. It has an AMD 5600+ dual core, 2GB corsair RAM, and an ATI x1300 pro

It's not nearly as bad as it may seem though, in Team Fortress 2 for instance while on a full 32 man server I get around 25-30fps and it is extremely smooth at 1024x768 with mid-high settings. In Counter Strike Source on large dust2 server I get around 80fps with high settings at 1024x768. I wouldn't even think the x1300pro is capable of these frame rates seeing that it is a horrible card today.

I was curious the type of improvement I might see with something as simple as an 8600gt ddr3 512mb. I know this isnt a high end card by any means but it is a few magnitudes better than an x1300pro and I was assuming I would get a healthy improvement and things would be smoother as well. I can move up to the 8800gt with no problem (it is entirely possible on my dell, it is well documented by others), but I wasn't going to bother if I could achieve decent frame rates with the 8600gt. Thanks

[jason4207]

Personally, I'd rather go for a 3850 or 3870 over the 8600. Go for the 8800GT if you can afford it, though.

If you want something a little cheaper then the 7900 or x1900 series are a better bang4$ than the 8600...I think.

*Here comes the 8600 vs. 7900 rants!

[9x19sig]

Thanks for the reply, I wasn't trying to start a war if thats what your saying might happen. For $110 though, an 8600gt is going to give a large improvement as far as I can see compared to my x1300pro. An 8800gt or ati3870 would be nice, but it would be overkill I think. 60fps is enough for me in Team Fortress 2, and it would seem like the 8600gt could make this possible for relatively cheap.

I am building a *real* gaming machine around March-April of 08 so I didn't really want to drop more than $200 on a video card unless the 8600gt wasn't going to outperform the x1300 I already have by a nice margin. Make more sense now?

And by the way, I never run a resoultion higher than 1440x900 on my 19" LCD.

[CGR]

The "rants" hes talking about is an 8600GT wont be able to play DX10 games very well, so many people feel a 7900 series is a little cheaper and just as good.

[Brolloks]

Originally Posted by CGR

The "rants" hes talking about is an 8600GT wont be able to play DX10 games very well, so many people feel a 7900 series is a little cheaper and just as good.

I would pick the 7900 series any day over the 8600 series, IMO nVidia made a product line blunder with the 8600's, it was suppose to be an affordable DX10 card positioned lower in price and performance than the 8800's but better than 7900's, turns out the 8600's are weak and not positioned correctly from a price point...a typical marketing product line postioning mistake.

[9x19sig]

Sapphire 1950pro 256mb open box for $99?