Hey so I was looking into getting a new video card, as my old one died, and I had been using an 8500 Nvidia. But I have stopped following the PC scene for a year or so now so I kinda lost track of which PC cards were the best in each range. What is the best I could get for 120-ish, and could it run Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect (the only games i'd play on the pc)
 
I have a machine running Windows XP with an AMD Athlon 64 Dual Cor 5400+ (2.8 Ghz) and have 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM (can I even run those games on those specs?)

Not a huge amount of options for $120. 
 
At that price (roughly) I would suggest an ATI 4770, or nvidia 9600GT. 
 
If you went up to say $150, the options then become much more varied and give way better value. How much are you willing to spend?

"Radeon 4670, 1GB card Black Friday sale,  $64.99 with a $10 rebate making it $54.99. I haven't seen the system requirements for Dragon Age/ Mass Effect recently, but I do know that that card is better than the one you have now, pretty cheap, and I'm pretty sure it'll run them fine.
 
Quick performance comparison here. "

Just get a 9800GTX+ for that price. Your cpu is good enough where it wouldn't bottleneck framerates. You should have no problems running mass effect or dragon age with that card. I heard there were high tempertures with the hd4850, I recommend not getting that, even if it's a bit faster than the 9800GTX+, it stutters a bit when it overheats on crysis anyways. For other games there should be no problems.
 
Then again I suggest you put a bit more money towards a better nvidia card.

" @AndrewB said:

"Radeon 4670, 1GB card Black Friday sale,  $64.99 with a $10 rebate making it $54.99. I haven't seen the system requirements for Dragon Age/ Mass Effect recently, but I do know that that card is better than the one you have now, pretty cheap, and I'm pretty sure it'll run them fine.
 
Quick performance comparison here. "

The 4670 is as good as the 8800 GT.  I have the 4650 512MB and everything runs at max around 25-30 fps with a res of 1280X1024 on Mass Effect.  I haven't picked up Dragon Age yet.  Both games use Unreal Engine III though so Dragon Age should run just as well or better.  The 4670  is even better since it uses GDDR3 memory and is clocked higher. 
 
If you can hold off a little longer and save $50 more I would recommend getting the Radeon 5770.  It has 800 stream processes and is fully DX 11 compliant whereass the 4600 series has 320 stream process and is only DX 10.1.   You will be set for a while with that card.
 
This Site helps me keep track of the different card generations. "

Ah that's a real good site, thanks, I have a question regarding Direct X, I thought windows XP only supported up until 9 so do I really benefit with a direct X 11 compliant card?

You only live once.  Cease the day and get one of these.

Well, the reason I didn't suggest waiting for a Direct X 11 card was definitely because A) using XP means it doesn't really matter B) they're new, and very expensive, and I assumed waiting for a price drop or cheaper card may be out of the question since you'd be looking for a card immediately C) not really much on the horizon to take advantage of it (honestly, there were very few games that even took full advantage of Direct X 10), and D) because the card I suggested is pretty awesome in the mid-range level, and super cheap.
 
However, if you plan on upgrading to Windows 7 anytime soon (and you should seriously think about it), you might actually want to wait as long as you can for the dust to settle on the upcoming video card releases, and wait for proces to be driven down to a level you can handle.

" @cspiffo said:

" @AndrewB said:

"Radeon 4670, 1GB card Black Friday sale,  $64.99 with a $10 rebate making it $54.99. I haven't seen the system requirements for Dragon Age/ Mass Effect recently, but I do know that that card is better than the one you have now, pretty cheap, and I'm pretty sure it'll run them fine.
 
Quick performance comparison here. "

The 4670 is as good as the 8800 GT.  I have the 4650 512MB and everything runs at max around 25-30 fps with a res of 1280X1024 on Mass Effect.  I haven't picked up Dragon Age yet.  Both games use Unreal Engine III though so Dragon Age should run just as well or better.  The 4670  is even better since it uses GDDR3 memory and is clocked higher. 
 
If you can hold off a little longer and save $50 more I would recommend getting the Radeon 5770.  It has 800 stream processes and is fully DX 11 compliant whereass the 4600 series has 320 stream process and is only DX 10.1.   You will be set for a while with that card.
 
This Site helps me keep track of the different card generations. "

Ah that's a real good site, thanks, I have a question regarding Direct X, I thought windows XP only supported up until 9 so do I really benefit with a direct X 11 compliant card? "

Your CPU is going to bottleneck most of the newer cards, so I suggest either a GTX 260 or a Radeon HD 4890. They will give you great performance in games, aren't too expensive, and won't be too bottlenecked by your CPU.  
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469-9.html

Are u guys living in 2007? The best card for 100$ is the 4850 or 250 if u want nivdia and they both have the same performance.If u have 144$ you can get a 4870 which will max out anything.

" Are u guys living in 2007? The best card for 100$ is the 4850 or 250 if u want nivdia and they both have the same performance.If u have 144$ you can get a 4870 which will max out anything. "

Shop google and get a GTS 250 or higher or an ATI 4870 my personal favorite which I own.