SAPPHIRE Radeon X1650PRO 256MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Graphics Card 100174L

Pros: I recently bought the OEM version of this card which newegg is no longer listing. The OEM version has a 600MHz core and 1400 MHz memory clock but this retail version only has a 450/1350 for some reason. The loss of 150 MHz on the core speed has got to hurt the overall performance. This is the only midrange ATI AGP card to sport GDDR3 memory with Shader model 3.0 so it's either this card or the 7600GS if you want those features. It will play games like FEAR Combat, NFS Carbon, Battle Field 2 and other modern games with no problems but if you want to turn up the eye candy then be prepared to play at 1024 x 768 or lower resolution.

Cons: The 7600GS offers the same features and better performance for just a little more money.

Overall Review: 3DMark03 score = 8700
3DMark05 = 5100
3DMark06 = 2300

AMD 3200 CPU with 1.5 GB memory.

It does better in benchmarks than actual game play.
In most games this card performs much like a 6600GT and in some games like BF2 it performs a little better than a 6600GT and is about the same price.

Pros: Decent performance for the price for AGP systems. Basic aquamark scores of about 41,000 in 2600+ Barton core system and about 37,500 in 2200+ system.

Cons: Cooling needs to be better. I bought two cards. One runs about 72 degrees under load with the computer case open. The other card always overheated and shut down under load, so had to put non-stock cooling on it. I put on cooling intended for Radeon 9000 series. With the big cooler, the hot-running card still hits about 68 degrees.

Overall Review: The driver and add-on junk installer is rather poor. Often, the driver (or something) doesn't get installed correctly, and graphics performance ends up being very slow. So you have to uninstall, then try it again and maybe leave off some of the add-on utility junk. If you only want the driver, you can try having XP install it directly without using the install utility on the driver CD.