One fine day, a friend of mine asked me about graphic cards. I lamented that due to my system specs, I cannot get any of the latest graphic cards, and the nVidia 6600GT (which I already have) is probably the best I can get for AGP-based motherboards.
Well, the surprise for me is that he said there are now AGP versions of the GeForce 7 series of cards. Lo and behold, he was right! A quick look at Hardwarezone confirmed that a typical AGP GeForce 7600GT is available for about S$260 or so!
So, I wasted little time in heading out to Sim Lim Square (Singapore’s unofficial electronics centre) and grabbing one of those babies. Seeing as everything I have still works, and there is very little reason to upgrade my Pentium 4 3.0Ghz Hyperthreading PC, a $260 upgrade to keep it usable for a couple of years more is pretty much worth it. Perhaps I might get a 2nd harddisk to beef up storage, but otherwise I do not foresee myself spending anymore money on this PC before I spend about $1,500 or so for the next PC (probably somewhere in 2009 or 2010).
Performance wise, I’m very satisfied. In fact, more than satisfied. For example, previously I could only play Oblivion comfortably on medium settings. Now, with this new 7600 GT, I could easily put it at HIGH and still feels ok to play. Oblivion does look better too! Same goes for Gothic 3, the game I am currently playing, and Neverwinter Nights 2. All graphic options can now be at HIGH (with some minor tweaking to disable some stuff I do not want) and still get pretty decent frame rates!
Colour me happy 🙂
