6600GT 128MB AGP4x/8x

[Yamaneko]

I'm planning on getting this video card soon. It has to be the AGP one (I don't have a PCI-E slot on my mobo). I've read good things about the card in general, but I want to know what company puts out the best card. eVGA, AOpen, Rosewill, Leadtek, ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE, etc.? Suggestions?

[Maxico]

Doesn't that depend on what you intend to do with it?

[Samuraid]

I've used Asus, eVGA, and Gigabyte cards before and all three have worked well. (especially eVGA)

You should also check newegg.com for the specific model you want and make sure it has a decent rating before buying.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681413020120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121195
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125168

[Yamaneko]

Thanks. The eVGA one got good reviews. I'll keep my eye on that one. 1000MHz clock speed is bull, though. That's for the PCI-E one. The AGP comes clocked at a little over 900MHz.

[Endless]

Although for a different model (5200FX), I've been using an MSI card for a while with no complaint t make.

[Samuraid]

Actually, the ones with GDDR3 are running memory around 1000MHz.

[Shlup]

128? Isn't that weak? Mine's 256 and I thought it was pretty ghetto...

[Samuraid]

This is video RAM (as opposed to main computer memory) and 128MB of video RAM is quite acceptable. :)

[Yamaneko]

Plus, it's all a matter of Clock and Memory speeds, and how many pipelines the card has. I have a FX 5700LE with 256MB of VRAM, and it's a piece of crap. :)

[Samuraid]

Very true.

I found this to be a good reference:
http://www1.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041222/vga_charts-01.html