Which Video Card for Vista and some Light Gaming

[junkinthetrunk]

My HP a1340n came with a free Vista Upgrade and I've been getting into some light gaming (Grand Theft Auto, Land of the Dead, anything silly and with guns.)

I'm considering finally upgrading from XP. I have 2 gigs of RAM and I'm looking at a PCI-E card. Either:


Ati Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB DDR2
$84.98 - Staples clearance


Radeon® X800 CrossFire™ Edition 256MB PCI Express® WhiteBox - REFURB
$84.55 - using 5% off + free shipping coupon ATIKP5
http://www.shopati.ca/product.asp?sku=3130802

[junkinthetrunk]

Found the X1600 Pro on Staples's site. It's 50% off in store.
http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?CatIds=,&webid=646408

Do one of the above cards stand out as better? Is there a better budget card that I should be considering?

[matkun]

They are both pretty decent cards for light gaming at a good price.

Anything with more grunt will be $100+. The next step up that is worth it, in terms of gaming power is the X1950 Pro at ~$150.

If you will be watching HD movies, you may want to consider an HD 2600 Pro or 8600 GT for the decode capabilities, though the X1950 Pro will outdo them in terms of performance games.

[junkinthetrunk]

Thanks for the advice! Really appreciate it.