Replacement Parts

[Kaneda]

Decided to just replace the dead hard drive and the graphics card with the broken fan.

Are these good selections? The cheaper the better for me since I'm dirt poor but I need something that can at least play HL2 as well as my 128 mb Radeon 9600xt (which wasn't that great to begin with but playable)

This is what im looking at getting...

Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822135106)
$53

ASUS N6600/TD/256 Geforce 6600 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814121196)
$109

Total: $162 (these are both off newegg.com)

Is there a better, cheaper combination that would serve suffice to play HL2? I dont need anything beyond 80 gigs since I have 2 dvd burners and I archive most of the stuff I burn to begin with.

[thrash_head]

Spend the extra money for a 6600GT 128. The GT makes all the difference.

[Kaneda]

Spend the extra money for a 6600GT 128. The GT makes all the difference.

If I may ask. Why?

I read somewhere that SE's usually arent as good but wasn't able to find a specific reason why. Could you enlighten me?

I'll follow your recommendation anyways though and bump up to the GT.

Edit: Is there a 6600GT version for AGP? Perhaps Im just not finding it on newegg. Seen the 6600GT PCI-E one though

[ass*assassin]

I got the new N6600 and it kicks ass.. 256meg of memory.. nice board for not a lot of money (150 bux)... my tfc kicks now..

[thrash_head]

The GT out performs the le by far.. I am not a expert, but ask anyone here, the GT is well worth the upgrade.

[jabroni]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1067910550+1069609639&Subcategory=48&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=&ATTR1=&ATTR2=&ATTR3=2010380048+1067910550&ATTR4=&ATTR5=&ATTR6=&ATTR7=&ATTR8=&ATTR9=&ATTR10=2010380048+1069609639&ATTR11=&ATTR12=&ATTR13=&ATTR14=&ATTR15=&ATTR16=&ATTR17=&ATTR18=

[Kaneda]

Thank you jabroni.

Now here are two more questions.

Im assuming the mb size wont really give a good estimate of performance. I know Ive seen benchmarks of 128 cards doing better than 256 cards.

Would you all recommend the 128mb 6600GT over the 256mb 6600 non GT?

Also... what is a comparable ATI of this card for around the same price? $130? Im really hesitant about just randomly picking an ATI card -I THINK- might be the same.

[jabroni]

i think the more memory you have the better it will run with higher settings like textures (detail and whatnot) and such. and a 9800pro/xt is probably around the same. but people say 6600/gt is still better. the gt has higher clock speeds tahn the non gt. and, to me, that makes a bigger difference than mem amount. and both have 128bit mem so gt is definitely the better deal between the two.

i dont know for sure about any of this though.

there is a x800pro that would cripple those cards (well maybe not!), thats for about 150 on newegg, but its pci-e :| idk if it comes in agp. you can probably look around on other sites to check. edit: even if you did find an agp version it would probably be a bit more than the pci-e version. so boo on that.