Fighting Irish Forums

I ran across a GEForce 7600oc (AGP) with 512m onboard memory today at my local Compusa for $200. My current card, which cost twice as much two years ago is a 6800oc w/256m. I will probably have to keep my current PC setup for at least another year before upgrading, maybe longer. Would this card be likely to give me a noticeable boost in performance?
My rig is an AMD64 3000 on an ASUS K8V Deluxe MB with 1 gig of Corsair CMX3200 (2x512). What do our resident hardware mavens think?

you can run at higher resolutions without any stutter, given that the game itself doesnt have bugs

I trust you have compared the specs between the two cards, right Murph? Just make sure your PSU will work with this newer card.

I would say do not upgrade to that card IMHO. If anything get this for $159 after rebate http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814143046" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is going to be a noticeable improvement over what you have now.

Thank you, someone, for mentioning Newegg.

I got my 7600GT PCIe for about $100!

Newegg rocks!

yeah, Newegg does rock and they ship fast too

Just to add to my initial post and this discussion Murph. I'm sure you have already gone to the BFG website but for ease of reference:

BFG 6800 GS OC 256MB - Core Clock 370MHz - 350W PSU
BFG 7600 GS OC 512MB - Core Clock 420MHz - 350W PSU
BFG 7800 GS OC 256MB - Core Clock 400MHz - 400W PSU

* Also consider the voltage and amperage requirements that are mentioned.

We both have the 6800 card. I looked at the 7800 card which is the last card they did for AGP but my 350W PSU wasn't sufficient. I also considered the 7600 card. While the PSU will work (didn't confirm voltage/amperage), it only generates 525 million vertices/sec versus 555 million vertices/sec that our 6800 cards can do.

You noticed that right Murph? The 7600 is actually a poorer performer. Now that's not to say for certain games that could use the increased memory on the video card wouldn't benefit, though some articles I have read suggest that most games are only taking advantage of 256MB at best.

So in the end I realized my existing card, which has treated me well over the last couple of years since upgrading from an ATI 9700TX card, is my best option until I eventually buy a newer machine.

Hope something here has helped.

Regards,
TS!

Thanks everyone for your input- I'll probably wait a while longer to make a decision, definitely not going with the 7600 though, maybe with the 7800. I'll have to study the comparison charts.