Sapphire 9600xt AGP Dying... (Need upgrade under $100)

Alrighty, first off thanks to any who help. My current card I've had for a long time and is a Sapphire Fireblade Edition 9600xt (128mb-AGP). It's been an awesome card, but is sadly starting to die as colors are getting twitchy and I'm getting some nasty tears. I've tried the card in multiple systems and multiple drivers (Standard, Beta, Omega) to the same end. Well, with christmas around money is thin so I have at max $100 to spend on a card and I want to get a new one within the next week or two max as I am getting uber annoyed when playing. Thankfully, my father is grabbing me a 430w Antec PSU (Dual 12v) as a present so I have that end covered.

What are my best options in the department for an upgrade? I mainly play World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike: Source, and other random PC games. Not worried about bells and whistles or future tech for the most part. Mainly want to play WoW and CS:S as best as possible. Figure sometime late next year I'll build a whole new machine with PCI-E (or better if available) for when Warhammer Online is released.

Saw that newegg.com had a eVGA 6600 GT (AGP) for $99.99, but it was removed from listing last night.

Current System:
AMD Athlon 2500+ (Barton)
Soltek SL-75MRN-L Mobo
Sapphire Fireblade Edition 9600xt (128mb-AGP) *Dying*
1gb Crucial PC2700
350w Antec PSU [Replacing with 430w Antec]
Windows XP Pro (SP 2)

I was about to agree with you and then I saw that thang has some puny core clock speeds. Some of the other's have low mem clocks.

These things should have 590-600 core and 1380-1400 DDR, but they range as low as 450 core and 800 mem. 8O

expensive AGP, but look at the reference clocks.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814195031

This is the card you want. A nice little 7300GT AGP for only 83$! at newegg of course and that card is a powerhouse for just a low end card for only 80$.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150198

That's good for the price, but a reference clocked X1650 pro will almost always beat a low clocked GDDR2 7300GT. The PCI-e GDDR3 7300GT's with the killer clock speeds are a whole different story.

Anyway, compare the two here in fear and the X1650 pro offers more than a 50% increase in performance. (22fps to 37 fps) http://www.digit-life.com/articles [...] -pcie.html

Note the high clocked GDDR3 7300GT pulls out 39 fps compared to 22 fps for the low GDDR2 reference model.

Yea, only if its GDDR3. Otherwise, its junk.

eBay is your friend dude. You can find 6600GTs for around $50. You might even get lucky and nab a 6800GT. Radeon X800s didn't turn up much when I searched but that doesn't mean a deal couldn't turn up. Just make sure it's an AGP card and don't forget to take into account shipping costs.

X800 right here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Radeon-X80 [...] dZViewItem

Indeed with shipping the card came out to $94. The winner got a very nice AGP card that I'm sure would smoke most of the cards that have been mentioned in this post. eBay can be an AGP buyers friend.

Thanks for the suggestions. Still watching newegg and such for good deals. Ebay I have had too many bad experiences with regarding PC items, so I refuse to purchase items from the site anymore. Newegg I have used for years and have had exceptional experiences with them and several companies on pricewatch.