quick agp question

[shimsham]

looking to upgrade an aging system. specs are as follows.

xp 2500@3200
asus a7n8x
1 gig geil pc3500
6200 modded to 6600 running 425/660
360watt ps

im wondering which would be a better fit for my system. a 6800 ultra or a 7600gs. im not ready to overhaul eveything for pcie yet, so im just looking to upgrade the vid card for now. just wondering which would be better off for games such as bf2, oblivion, fear, etc.

off the cuff, im thinking the ultra would still hold the edge, but im not so sure. my small ps gives me concern also, as i remember the ultras needing some beef in that department to run smoothly. not really worth it, IMO, to take the ultra for a small edge when i would have to upgrade the ps. im gonna wait for that until i do a complete overhaul this christmas or so.

i havent been able to find a review comparing the two, and im pretty sure a review using older procs such as mine just isnt out there to find.

any thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

 

[Captante]

The 6800 Ultra is about the same as a 7600GT in most benchmarks, so it'll be quite a bit faster then a GS.. it also takes up two slots, runs very hot & draws a lot of power, however out of your two choices its an easy winner. **(A 6800GT off FS/FT would also be a lot faster the 7600GS & only use a single slot, plus there are several listed for approx $130 right now)

If you are buying a new card, I'd say you would be best off trying to get one of the Leadtek AGP 7600GT's if they are back in stock anywhere yet & the second choice would be an ATI X850XT which is actually the fastest of all the cards mentioned here, albeit with slightly lower image quality.

 

[lobbyone]

i'd take the 6800ultra, its faster than the 7600gs, all your getting with the 7600gs is well...the 7xxx series branding...lol

 

[Cookie Monster]

A 6800ultra will be fast as a 7600GT if not faster as you up the res/AA/AF thanks to its 256bit memory interface.
But as someone mentioned, it is power hungry, need 2 molex connectors, hot, dual slot cooling and big.

 

[smthmlk]

i have a 6800ultra agp, a 7600gs agp, and a 7600gt pci-e, and have compared them quite a bit in 3 different systems (which included at one point an asrock 939dual-sata2).

The 6800Ultra & 7600GT are much better than the 7600gs agp, period. The 6800Ultra falls a tad short of the 7600gt when the resolution is lower, but the 6800U agp scales much better to higher resolutions above 1280x1024 than the 7600gt pci-e does (for obvious reasons -> pixel pipelines, memory bandwidth). However, the gap isn't huge. The 6800U idles at a slightly higher temp than the 7600GT pci-e, and definitely uses more power than a 7600gt pci-e. Those are my observations from owning all three cards (and I still have them all).

Personally I wouldn't touch another 7600gs agp-- overpriced, sub-par performance. The 7600GT PCI-E is a terrific card for the price (I paid $130 for mine after rebate/taxes/shipping).

 

[BassBomb]

your cpu will bottleneck you alot