7600GT vs 7900GT for new system

[flakpyro]

Im about to build a new conroe based system, i have everything pinned down except for the video card, im having a hard time choosing what to do.

I can get a Evga 7900GT KO (AR reloaded version) for 335CND, or a 7600GT KO for 170CDN at ncix.com. Im having a hard time choosing what to get, on one hand i want to be able to play all my games maxed out on my LCD (19 inch at 1280x1024) but on the other i dont want to buy an expensive card what may become useless in a very short period of time.

I guess what would help me make this choice is knowing when the next wave of cards is expected? If its this fall i would be wise to get a 7600GT Ko and wait, if the new cards are a longer ways off i may as well grab a 7900GT.

Right now i have a Evga 6800nu AGP card i bought back when the 6800 series first launched (what 2 years ago?) so i need to get some sort of PCI-E card regaurdless. My LCD is capped at 1280x1024 so thats as high as ill ever go, but with AA, AF and HDR i question if a 7600GT Ko would be able to keep up.

So now that you know my story what do you folks recomend?


Thanks

[rage10]

get the 7900 the next gen card are due out sometime this fall, but thay will be expensive. so its worth it to get the 7900 and wate for 6-8 months for the price to go down. you can also get a very fast pair of 7600 from newegg for 170$ thay will surpass the 7900 in fps and you can OC them from 560/1400 to 600/1560+

good luck with what ever you buy

[SH64]

but on the other i dont want to buy an expensive card what may become useless in a very short period of time.
Every card will get useless in a very short period of time ... thats how the graphics card market is today.

deal with it & get a 7900GT. best bang for the buck.

[ynnek]

I'm personally holding off buying any vid card until they implement the HDCP chip.


although I hear talks that the big movie publishers agreed not implement the flag that limits output streams to 480p if there is no HDCP chip.. anyone heard that?

[flakpyro]

I'm personally holding off buying any vid card until they implement the HDCP chip.


although I hear talks that the big movie publishers agreed not implement the flag that limits output streams to 480p if there is no HDCP chip.. anyone heard that?


Well i think by the time movie publishers start to enforce that requirement a 7900GT will be considered quite old and you will probably have something much faster anyway.

[snowmanwithahat]

well look at it this way, the 7600 Gt compares in most benchmarks to a 6800 GT, beating it most of the time, and a 6800 GT would only be a small step up from what you have... you'd probably notice the difference, but not much... however if you did go with a 7900 GT, you would most definetly experience a difference, and as far as new technology wise, it would go bad, yes, but performance wise, i doubt it will go bad all too fast... as you know 6800's aren't really all that slow, and they're more than 2 years old now, which is old for a high end card.... i'm sure the 7900 gt would have plenty of life in it, and that'd probably be your best bet, you'd definetly notice the difference