vid card advice

I have a Geforce FX 5500 and need to upgrade as it is entry level shader 2.0 and falling behind fast. I don't want to shell out more than 200 bucks. No PCI-E, I'm stuck with AGP.

Anyone have a good card in mind? Only one I've seen is the Geforce 6200OC 256mb DDR, but I've read some bad reviews about it. I'd like to stick with nvidia.

6800, or 7600 (I think I saw an AGP version of it).

Even a 7800 if they exist for AGP but I actually found my 6800 was pushing the limits of AGP in games. a lower end card than it outperformed it in a newer PC.

the 7600 does the job and is relatively inexpensive.

I got mine for £84 inc tax and delivery :)

Does it require a 300W power supply?

:O what do you have now?

Mines a fanless version, uses very low power, but 300W is quite weak even for the 5500. Sounds like you might need to look at the rest of your system...

Thanks all, I went with the 7600GS. Read some good reviews and figured I'd take the plunge. Man I hate spending money. I'm the guy that always goes shopping but returns home empty handed. Somehow I managed to get it up to the couter :).

Thanks again!

i wouldnt recommend less than a 350w psu these days.

Know of a way I can see how much wattage mine is pushing?

markd: It may be printed on the top of the psu. If not you can probably google the psu model number to find out. Also, the standard equation is Watts = Amps * Volts. I don't think there's any way to tell what the wattage is through windows.

Cygnus: 512MB 7800 exists for agp. I bought the Gainward overclocked/unlocked which is the quickest nvidia card for agp, but it cost over $600AUD. It was either that, or toss everything out and build a brand new system yet again, which I'm completely fed up with doing every 12 months.

I can't really tell any difference between a 7600 and a 7800, and the 7600 is pretty inexpensive.

There's a few differences. More pipes, higher fill rate, higher MB/s memory bandwidth, and in the case of the Gainward card twice as much memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_Graphics_Processing_Units

It's a reasonable improvement over 7600, but still doesn't work out too good for the big price difference though.