Lots of cards that are probably cheaper are comparable to the 7600GT.
Look at the ones in the various game and 3D benchmarks here.
Find something that is a little faster or a little slower than the 7600GT and start
comparing prices and models.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/...6&model2=716&chart=275
I happen to know that the 8600GT is a good card similar to the performance of
the 7600GT, and I just bought an EVGA 8600GT for $89. I've seen them on sale
at places like newegg.com and so on for $78 up depending on model and
manufacturer.
I think XFX is a good choice for people and cards that qualify for their
'double lifetime warranty' which they have in some cases.
That's why I bought an XFX 7800gt and 8800GTX.
Though for people/cards where that doesn't apply, the advantage isn't there, so
you could look for other quality vendors and have a wider selection to find
a good deal.
EVGA, BFG, XFX all seem to be very reputable vendors for video cards.
A lot of people seem to do OK with ASUS, MSI, Sparkle, LeadTek etc. etc. too,
but I'd personally want to stick with ones with the best available service / support /
warranty so shop around and figure out what your priority is on price vs
generic brand cards etc.
Also between the next 3 days and 2 weeks ATI and NVIDIA will be releasing new
models of low-end or mid-range cards (so the rumor goes), so maybe if you
wait a little you can find a good deal on one of those or maybe they'll lower prices
on some of the older models because of the appearance of the new ones.
Used cards? Well often you can check out places like ebay if you dare, or
craigslist or the for-sale forum on boards like anandtech (I think there's one),
or xtremesystems or any other such forum where people want to sell cards.
Only thing is you have to make sure you don't get scammed or sold
a defective card or one with missing parts or whatever.... so many times
it's best to buy from someone local where you can go see the product,
see it working in a PC before you buy it etc.
You're talking about $129 for a 7600gt and trying to save money on that, which
is fine. But maybe if you choose to save up for a while longer you might get to
a point where you can afford (without regret) to spend in the $200 range in
which case you'll have brand new card options that are like literally four to six
times faster than the 7600gt in performance.
The new 8800GT is like $200 list price, though presently most places sell it for
more like $270, but eventually there will be ones right around $200.
ATI's new card uh... HD3850? I think that's the one is also supposed to be
around $190 to $240 as rumor has it.
Either one of those should be a LOT faster than the 7600gt if that matters
to you, and $200 isn't TOO much more than $129 if you save up for another
few weeks/months to make up the difference.
Maybe the games you WANT to play run just fine on the 7600gt, though,
in which case, of course, don't spend more than you need to to get the
performance and game playability that you actually need.
Places to buy new cards cheap? Check out lots of places like
clubit.com, newegg.com, zipzoomfly.com, mwave.com, ncixus.com, ewiz.com,
amazon.com, outpost.com, bestbuy.com, compusa.com,
tigerdirect.com, etc. and just keep looking what's on sale like 2 times a week
or more and once you find a deal that you know is the best you've seen
in like 2-3 weeks or whatever, go for it.
Also places like pricegrabber.com, dealtime.com, froogle.com have search
engines so you can actually search for low prices using those sites on
specific card models and find one which one of a few dozen different
resellers has the best price that they know about at the moment.
I search those places like 4x a day if I'm really looking for something specific
for as cheap as possible.
Make bookmarks of your different product searches, product pages, etc.
and then it'll be easier to load them all up again periodically to find
out if any better deal has shown up.
Also check the "hot deals" forum here on anandtech and at fatwallet.com and
places like slickdeals.com and so on since sometimes they'll have
info. on good sales... In fact I remember reading about one recently... let's see..
Yeah here's some options:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2117409&enterthread=y
Visiontek radeon x1950 pro $66 AR at Circuit City B&M
[look at the benchmark vs the 7600GT at the tomshardware site -- the
X1950PRO is *WAY* faster than the 7600GT]
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2113630&enterthread=y
PNY Geforce 7900GS for $45.99 at BestBuy B&M of course YMMV
etc. etc. anyway you get the idea.
Just compare the performance of the cards you might get vs. the 7600GT
or 8600GT on the toms hardware charts and other review sites for the games
you want to play or similar ones...
Personally I like XFX and NVIDIA cards over ATI ones but that's just me,
so make your own decisions on what it's worth to you!
Good luck!