I'm currently going to upgrade my gfx card on the PC in order to play Half-Life 2. I'm running an old school p4 2.1GHZ with 512 PC800 RIMM. My motherboard just burnt out and since they don't sell the P4T-E anymore I got something off ebay. My current GFX card is a ATI 8500 64Mb card. It's old I know...

I'm trying to decide now between a ATI X700, X600 and GeForce 6600 GT. They all pretty much lie on similar grounds except the x700 out performs the latter. I was wondering with my 2.1GHZ set up if the overall performance will be hindered a lot and I should upgrade the CPU along with the video card? And of those midlevel gfx cards, what is best recommended.

Thanks for your input.

 

I personally have the 6800 GT. I'd pick up the 6600 GT. The x700s have been discontinued and seem to be difficult to find.

 

BFG 6600GToc

 

6800GT is the loudest fucking card I've ever heard. Its driving me nuts right now, i'll probably have to buy a silencer for it =(

 

Nvidia's were always known as slot hoggers and loud motherfuckers

 

Huh...mine's pretty quiet. Maybe your manufacturer skimped on the fan used.