seeking new video card advice

I'm putting together a new machine(p4 2.8, 1 gig ram) and need to choose an agp(8x) video card for it. My budget is $200.
Whats the best card to get for that price?
Or would it be better to get a really cheap card and wait
for half life 2 to come out?

Any sites that have buying advice on video cards would be helpful also, because I'm not having much luck finding usefull sites.
Thanks everyone.

I''d suggest the ATI9600XT in that case. Decent performance and good price right now. Plus it includes the Half-Life 2 voucher.

Or would it be better to get a really cheap card and wait
for half life 2 to come out?

That depends on the point if Half-Life 2 really, really is the only game you want to play. In that case you might as well wait and not get a new system at all until then. But keep in mind that there are also titles like Far Cry, Söldner, Battlefield Vietnam, Deus Ex 2, Thief III oncoming. (Just to name a few.) And since they benefit from a decent gfx card it wouldn''t hurt to have one then.

It took me a long time to get up to speed before I bought my card. Articles on these sites helped me:

hothardware.com
anandtech
bjorn3d

Some people here have seen Radeon 9800 cards for a little over $200. That''s a good buy.

My new 9000 is blowing the crap out of what my now-defunct GeForce 3 was capable of doing. Sure, it isn''t a 9600 or 9800, but it gets the job done.

Yeah, my 9000 pro does pretty well for me. On the cheap no less!

How much did you get yours for, bagga? I paid $85 for mine, plus $45 for the repair people to figure out what was wrong with the computer in the first place.

I paid around 110 for mine, but that was six months ago at... geh, Best Buy. I needed one immediately.

I''d suggest the ATI9600XT in that case.

9600XT at $199...can''t go wrong and free HL2 to boot.

Has the 9600xt been released yet?

I''d also say go with the 9600XT. Nvidia just doesn''t have the bang for the buck it used to.

As far as getting good prices on components, I''ve had luck with:
www.pricewatch.com

Of course I always seem to have www.bbb.org open at the same time.

-da

Thanks for the tips
I think im going with the 9600xt unless I cant find it when I go to build my machine in a couple days at which point I think I''ll do the 9600 pro.

www.newegg.com has the 9600XT in stock..

AFAIK Best Buy has the ATI retail 9600XT in stock but don''t expect them to sit on shelves long...most Best Buys are only getting a handful of them in at a time.

Personally I find Pricegrabber.com to be much more useful than pricewatch. They have a user rating system for each retailer, and the retailers in general seem to be more reputable. Also if you type your zipcode in they automatically factor shipping and tax into the final price which makes things a bit easier to sort through.

Hold up, hold up. You need to read this, found it today:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=1183051

I dunno questionable DX9.0 performance on the entire FX line makes me very wary of Nvidia and their ""tricks""

I''d pass on Nvidia''s current offerings and wait and see what the NV40 brings to the table.

Unless your intrest is stricly with OpenGL games then choosing any Nvidia card over an ATI card at this point is very questionable..

Unless your a hardcore Fanboy!!@!@#!