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Here are my thoughts...
...GF4Ti are DX8.1 ...
...I think DX9 will be important, although not necessary, when it comes to future games such as Half Life 2 and Doom 3...
...I have never had a problem with ATI's Catalyst drivers...yet.
...AGP 8x may also become important when those games come out...the need to move massive textures may make the AGP 8x a very worthwhile feature to have.
...For under $200, I don't think you'll get a 256 meg card...128MB should be the minimum to consider...
If you really want to get a good card, and you've got the time to save the $$, then an nVidia FX 5900 (when it comes out) or an ATI 9800/9700 pro are your best bets...but at a high price...$300 and up. Although, with the ATI 9800 out, perhaps the 9700pro's price will come down soon.
For a good card...the best card you can get to run Half Life 2 or Doom 3, you'll definately want 8X AGP, 256MB of Ram, and a card with DDRII and a nice wide 256bit bus...but that's if you've got $500 to spend. ATI's 9800 pro will have a 256 MB version...I'm sure the FX5900 will too, but for ALOT of money.
IMO, if you must buy a card now, for under $200, I'd get an ATI 9500 pro...
-TV out/DVI out/Analog
-AGP 4x (no 8x that I'm aware of)
-has 128MB ram
-it is DX9 capable
-future games should run well...with most visuals turned on;
-current games run great!
-the 9500pro shares the exact same components as the more expensive 9700pro...minus the memory bus width (128 bit vs 256 bit)
-the 9500 pro has 8 rendering pipelines, although only 4 are enabled; the memory is also underclocked and locked by ATI and cannot be overclocked. ATI did this so that folks would buy the 9700pro. But if everyone knew that you could unlock a 9500pro, enable the other 4 pipelines, and overclock the memory to 9700pro levels with just a simple bios flash, fewer people would buy the 9700pro and save themselves $200. You can download the unlocked bios, flash the card, and your system will now see it as a 9700pro...and you'll get similar performance...although at higher resolutions, it won't match the 9700pro due to its 128bit memory bus limitation...but still a very fast card.
If you opt not to go with the 9500pro and don't want to bother with the bios...then get the 9600pro. It is the same as the 9500pro, but with only 4 physical rendering pipelines...but includes faster memory to make up the difference. It too is a very good card and should do well in future games. It cannot, however, reach 9700pro levels like the 9500pro can due to its overclocking limitations.
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