The 8800GT is one generation behind. Get the 9800 GT. Its an updated 8800GT and is as cheap -if not cheaper- than the 8800GT and has a great performance.

 

None taken. I guess when I sit down and think about it, all I'm trying to do is squeeze out a few extra performance out of only ONE PC game.

 

Going from an 8600GT to a 9600GT will make a LOT of difference in TF2.

I run at 1280x1024 and it made a very noticeable improvement. Even with everything turned on high it runs perfectly.

 

I have a 9600GT, it's great, only problem is there are no hackintosh drivers, so I can't play around in OSx86.
Otherwise game performace in Windows is great, and linux drivers work with some tweaking in Ubuntu.

Oh and TF2 plays at max settings on my machine at 1280x1024, with Athlon X2 2.2Ghz, 2GB RAM, ASUS A8N5X mobo.

 

If you are going to upgrade, actually upgrade to a new card that has better performance. While the 8800GT is more powerful then the 8600, the 9600GT isn't anymore powerful, just supports a newer version of DirectX and is PCIe 2.0 compatible. If you want a true upgrade, you should go for the 9800 and just save yourself some trouble. I know it isn't cheap but it would be a better choice imo.

 

Really? I just went from a FX5200 to a 9600GT and it looks like another game to me.. lighting, texture, shader effects.. it's a lot better now. Of course I changed my CPU and memory too

 

No, the 9600GT isn't any better then the 8800GT, it is better then the 8600 but not by a huge stretch.

 

Looks like I got plenty of criticism for what I said. I did exaggerate I guess. But that's because you'd still expect a much larger change between them when upgrading that much. Textures, lighting and such did look a bit sharper, but only a bit.
Considering I went from not being able to even play Doom 3 (or anything newer) to being able to play Crysis on all Medium and a few on High.
The point I was trying to make was the Source engine copes perfectly fine with all graphics cards. If he upgrades to a 9600GT, he'll see an FPS increase but no graphical increase, even when it was perfectly playable already. If he was asking about a newer game such as BioShock, the question would be a no-brainer, as you'd be able to step up the graphics a lot.
Hopefully that rant helped. Point is, TF2 was perfectly playable before, and looked nice with an ancient card. When I upgraded to a much better card, I saw only a little improvement. Definitely wouldn't've been worth the money just for that game.

 

+1

Red team's won this round of the graphics card wars (and buried Nvidia in bigger shit than they already are).

HD4850 = Cheap + much better performing than 8800GT and better than 9800GTX+