Originally posted by: omega366
I am currently running a Radeon 9700 because my Geforce 6800 broke. I am looking for the best bang for my buck card. Should I wait a little bit since I heard from this forum that new cards are coming out soon which may lower prices of current mid range cards?
You are partially correct. The next generation of mid-range cards is due out within the next month, however these are pci-e cards and therefore will probably not have much effect on the AGP market.
If you have to stick with your current rig, you can get a
7600GT for $115 (after $20MIR), a
7800GS for about $100 (after $30MIR) or a
7900GS for $155 (after $30MIR). The
x1950pro for $156 (after $25MIR) is probably about the most powerful AGP card available now but it also has higher power requirements than the nVidia cards.
At $100 the 7800GS probably offers the best bang for the buck of these cards. If you review several of the charts
here you will find it matching (or beating, in some cases) all three of the other cards.
The only factor I can't address is how well your cpu will scale with these newer video cards. You really want to keep things balanced and at some point you will become cpu bound.