6600 or 6600GT on such slow CPU? Also about image quality of different brands

[sznupi]

Hello.
I will probaby make my PC a bit more sensible when it comes to recent games, and been looking mostly at Nvidia stuff (Linux support).

The machine is based on Athlon XP 1700+ (Palomino, so overclocking is out of the question) on SiS746FX (AGP, single channel memory), and it is very unlikelly this will change - next upgrade will be in far future = PCIe so I won't be able to use soon-to-be-bought AGP GFX card anyway (so no point in buying "for the future")
The question is: which card won't be unnecessary (given the CPU) overkill? I suppose GF6600 over 6200A is worth it, but 6600GT over regular 6600? It costs 1/3 more, so what's the point if it would give only, for example, 5% increase in performance (if any)
Also, supposedly 6 series cards accelerate decoding of WMV HD and H.264. Are there any differences in capabilities when it comes to video decoding between 6600 and 6600GT?

Also, I have an Eizo monitor running 1280x1024@90Hz, so image quality problems could be noticeable for me, especially since I use GFX card with extremmelly good image quality (and because I usually have eye/head pain if image quality isn't great)...
So...which manufacturer would give best analogue image quality? From what I see, I can choose here among MSI, Leadtek, Asus, Gigabyte, Galaxy (?) and Gainward...
Oh, and it would be nice if noise would be low...

[snowmanwithahat]

hmm, if you're talking just 2d, both the 6600 and the 6200 will have comparable quality, but if you're going to be gaming i'd definetly suggest a 6600, and i doubt the 6600 GT would be worth the price for you considering how old of a system you have

[Darkfalz]

Well you'd be able to run everything 4xAA 8xAF with no relative performance hit on your slow CPU. I doubt you'd be able to do that with 6200 or even 6600 (maybe).

[Gentle]

Are you sure that the system would not take a hit running with the 4X antialiasing?

I've got a 2100+ and I think it takes a hit on my 6600GT AGP.

Gentle

[Darkfalz]

Are you sure that the system would not take a hit running with the 4X antialiasing?

I've got a 2100+ and I think it takes a hit on my 6600GT AGP.

Gentle

Depends on the game. Of course 4x takes a hit all the time, but if you can still get over 60 FPS then what difference does it make?

Most games should be CPU limited at 2 GHz.

[john19055]

Ocourse it will take a hit running FSAA4x but if you are looking for a card that will hold you over for a little while,then IMO I would at least get the 6600GT because of the higher clocked core and the faster DDR3 memory.