As suggested in this thread, it might be worth it to create a buyers guide to graphic cards.

It should be in 2 parts, one which deals with actual cards and how they perform in relation to eachother (both to newer and older cards) and one which deals with cards in a more abstract way but give you an idea of how a card in a certain price-range will perform.
(Ie. a card in the sub 100$ will not compete with a card in the 200$ range. The latest and greatest is in the above 400$ range, but they often only perform about 10-20% better than the ones in the 300-400$ range)

So if you can post your experiences with the card(s) you have, aprox. how they perform compared to other cards you've had (ie you moved from an FX5200 to an X800pro, how do they compare?).

Also, any buyers tips and suggestions are welcome (ie. after using TechSpot's pricewatch, remember to check if there are any refurbs @ newegg, company XXY often have higher clocked cards than the others etc)

But please, don't just post to say "I hate ATI/nvidia/Matrox/S3/bit boys/whoever".
And if you want to say that card XYX is a good card, don't just say "yes, it's good", but tell us why...

If we get enough info, maybe we can write it up as a proper guide, and if not, we should have a small knowledgebase that people can read through and add personal experiences.

I used to have a 9200se recently upgraded to 9700 pro.

9200se was a really good card for just playing simple games
ie. counter-strike. But with games like hl2 and doom 3 was a very poor
effort mainly becuase it is a $70 card.

when i first got my 9700 pro my over all system performance improved.
windows loaded faster,games loaded faster. Not to mention the excellent reflections and high resoltions.


If you are a type of person who plays high demanding graphics games i sugest you save up and buy and good card rather than buying a poor cheap card.My processor is a amd athlon xp 2800+ and my computer can easily beat my friends computer a amd athlon 64 3200+ in 3d mark03 becuase he has a poor card.

i recommend spending less on a cpu and more on a card.

yes i can understand ur sentiments but what u are saying is incorrect one has balance between a good card and good CPU as some games are just as demanding on the CPU as it is on the GFX card so it is essential to balacne and buy the best possible at each budget, rather than jumping in and buying the best GFX card and a really bad CPU and also the RAM plays a very important part when u r buying a new system so balance ur money carefully. :grinthumb

yeh your totaly right but im not saying buy a celeron 2.0ghz and a x850 :grinthumb.

Here are some basic suggestions (open to debate)
On budget approx $100
ATI 9600XT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102344
the same card with 128Mb is available for some $10 cheaper so that is worth checking.
Nvidia 5700
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133136
safe bet but both these card are very limited performance gains worth a look for someone on a tight budget and needs decent performance.

another card worth a look in
ATI 9800SE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102524

for someone who can strech a little bit
Nvidia 6600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133136
a worthy performer. it miles ahead of those two cards.

On budget approx $150

6600GT

great buy at this price

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130220
same card diff company
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122206

well that is almost it the remain are self explanatory if u have anything more than this budget
then u can go for the higher end cards which i will post if need be

Disclaimer:
any suggestions is welcome as i did this entire thing after only one hour of research so must have left some good cards.

Why pay $400 for a graphics card if it is gonna be obsolete in a few years. Unless you have the money to burn go for it, but Im happy with getting 40-50 FPS on High Quality at 1024x on Doom3 on my 9800PRO which i just got off ebay for $122 with shipping. If you can get a mid range card like the 9800PRO for a price like that then your laughing your way into graphics glory without the loss of the $$GREEN$$. LOL.

I will agree with you to a certqain extent but then when one wants tyo push that extra somthing and get the best then it makes sense to go for something so expensive. like a new 7800 GTX and not mention the boast value it adds

I'd have to agree on the 6600GT, which is what I currently have in my system. I went for the MSI brand, since that is a company I have trusted in other components. I run Doom 3 and a few other graphics intensive games at higher resolutions (not max resolutions) and everything runs seemlessly. The price point is right near the middle at about $200 us from newegg.com. I'm not a big believer in super budget cards, but I had upgraded from an ATI 9600XT, which was also an excellent mid range card.