Radeon vs GeForce

I'll use this thread to ask for opinions about the Radeon X850 XT and Geforce 7800 GS line of cards for AGP slots. I'm asking this because I'm planning to upgrade but can't decide on one of these.

I'm currently using a Radeon 9800 Pro on a 3200+ Athlon XP system with 1 GB of RAM. Some people suggest upgrading the mainboard and processor instead and that a X850 XT or 7800 GS might be slowed down by my current CPU.

The 7800 GS (AGP version) seem to be slightly more expansive, but they offer Shader Model 3.0. I have no idea if I would even benefit from that, seeing how the purpose of my upgrade is being able to play games like Battlefield 2, Half Life 2 and the like in 1280x1024 (native 17" LCD) resolution and high quality settings.

On a side note, I can gladly do without FSAA. Never used it and never will, because all it does is make the image blurry. People should just use transparent plastic foil on their screens to achieve the same effect witout losing performance.

Long story short, what's the best AGP card money can buy?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Monkey King

If you're going for an AGP card, I'm quite satisfied with my Geforce 6600. It's not the abosulte best card you can get for AGP, but it handles shader 3.0 too and going any higher becomes ridiculously expensive for questionable gains. The 7800 GS is really more than you should put in a system that old, and you're going to feel silly spending $300 on a card that you cannot recycle when you finally upgrade your system.

Sounds reasonable so far, but my 9800 Pro would even outperform a 6600 GT. You know, I'm not planning to downgrade my hardware ... ;-)

There's nowhere I can't reach.