Hello folks!
Like many computer users I wish to upgrade my graphics card to fully explote todays high resolutions and speeds, I am however confused about where my money is best spent. I know I need an AGP card and like my exsiting card (AIT Radeon 9200 SE) need a TV output. My system is fairly new: 3gig p4, 1.5gb ram but the graphics could do with a boost. I read a recent copy of Computer Shopper http://www.compshopper.co.uk/
and recommended Inno3D GeForce 6800 for a mid priced graphics card at £141 from www.pcnextday.co.uk the only card on thier site however was the cheaper 6800LE which only produces 8 pixel pipelines instead of 12. I have around £150 to spend but would be pushed to £200 if the increase in performance could be justified. So anyone upgraded to a similar range of card recently or anyone in the trade that could share a decent bargain?

The games I play most are:
Battlefield 2
Half Life 2
Doom III etc.

The above are only playable at 800x640 the Inno3D 6800 ran Doom III with high detail 1024x768 at 80 odd frames a second. Thats the performance I want out of a card. If I can get better performance for the money please let me know. Right, I think thats about it, any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Im a nvidia fanboy and the 6800NU (nu=nonultra) is a great card, you are stuck with the 5 and 6 series of nvidia because the new 7 series is all pci-e.. altho you money would probably be best spent on a upgrade of motherboard to a PCI-E because agp is a dying brand that has been totally phased of for nvidia and so by ati... so whatever AGP on the market is out there is whats left.. SO the 6800 is your best bet.

New motherboard huh. So I would just have to get a motherboard which had all the things my old one had DDR ram would house the processor etc. but also came with 1 or preferably 2 pci slots. On that note I read an interesting article

"256MB 6600GTs reappear

Nvidia has either suffered a catastrophic breakdown or the firm is suffering from shame. Normally a 'new' product like the 256MB version of the PCI-E 6600GT would lead to fanfares and an inbox full of press releases. But everything has been done in a very hush-hush way.
It might seem strange that nVidia has had to sneak the 256MB 6600GT out but it's one of the firm's darkest secrets. It can't have escaped the notice of many gaming and graphics fans that you could buy a 256MB AGP version of the chip but were completely out of luck if you tried to get a PCI-E version. And the reason was bordering on scandalous.

When the 6600GT launched, the game that everyone wanted to run was Doom 3. It gave all the nVidia fanboys warm feelings because the game ran beautifully on their hardware and badly on ATI chips. But that's not the whole story.

It didn't take long for nVidia to realise that two 256MB 6600GTs in SLI could give the 6800 Ultra a run for its money in Doom 3. And two 256MB 6600GTs cost about 30% less at the time. The solution was simple: kill the 256MB version and only sell a 128MB version. That way the cards were hobbled and couldn't interfere with sales of the top end Ultra. Seems a bit underhanded of Nvidia, in my opinion.

Now that the 6800 has been killed off there's no problem having a 256MB 6600GT back on the market. A pair in SLI shouldn't interfere too badly with sales of the recently announced 6800GS or with the upcoming 7600."

Scandal. Anyway, I'm left with a dilema. Do I just buy an AGP card and have done with it for now, or (and I am a tech noob) switch motherboard for a SLi one for longevity but have to go through the hassle of installing alll my devices and so forth. (How would one go about installing stuff on the front panel???? i.e usb ports line in / out / mic etc.??)

Thanks again and hope to hear from you soon

well in the long run your best upgrading video and motherboard to either a 939 socket PCI-E motherboard SLI ready or Non SLI ready, or wait till end of 2006 for amd's socket M2 .. But if it were me i would just upgrade to a SLI motherboard or a non sli pci-e motherboard, and grab the best video card you can afford.

and if you do decided to upgrade to a new motherboard, you will have to reformat windows xp to get the new drivers and such installed for a new board.