Best video card for my system?

[Princey]

I feel I am in need of upgrading my Video Card, I just sold my MSI GeForce FX 5200 for £35. At the moment I have a 4MB ATi Rage IIc in lol until I get my new Video Card. I really don’t know what to get at the moment, I have my hearts set on two cards at the moment. A built by ATi Radeon 9800pro for £133 and a XFX Geforce 6800 non-ultra for £222. Bear in mind that I am not willing to upgrade my CPU anytime soon. So what do you guys think will best suite system?



Thanks

[Lfctony]

9800 Pro, you'd be extremely CPU limited with your CPU.

[Princey]

9800 Pro, you'd be extremely CPU limited with your CPU.

CPU limited with a 9800pro? hmm that isnt good :( I guess i'm going to be CPU limitied with most cards now then. I could get a Athlon XP 3000+ for £100 and mabye over clock it a little.

[jAkUp]

6800. I still dont think you would be CPU limited at higher resolutions w/ AA or AF. And the upcoming games are more Video Card limited. If you can bump your FSB to 166 with your current processor, and run your memory 1:1, I think you will be better off. Even without oc'ing, a 2600+ is still a decent processor, even edging out the 2500 Barton in alot of tests.

At higher resolutions with a faster processor, the difference in FPS is usually only about 3 fps. Upcoming games will stress your videocard more, with more DX9 effects, bumpmapping, displacement mapping etc. I think pretty soon our video cards will be put to the test once again.

Look at this:

The test platform is(no overclocking) :
Pentium4 2.4B GHz，533MHz FSB
Abit IS7，865PE
Maxtor 40G 7200rpm
Greatwall 300W Power supply
512MB DDR400
6800NU
ForceWare 60.85

It optained a score of 8242 in 3DMark03, not bad considering the the processor is only a 2.4... not even 800FSB.

Overclocking the 6800NU resulted in an even higher score:
http://www.pcpop.com/popimages/2004-5-20-19-4-55-7349.jpg

[Princey]

It is the 333fsb version of the 2600+

[jAkUp]

oh.. well either way, you still have a decent processor :)