Graphics Budget upgrade, which card?

I'm looking to upgrade my current card, a GeForce 6200LE TurboCache. The rest of the system is a Mobile Sempron 3000+ with 1GB PC3200, in a PCI express x16 motherboard of no fantastic quality. Budget is $50-$75 (£25-£40), although I'm willing to go as high as $100 (£50) if I absolutely must.

I don't play modern games, especially not framerate-sensitive ones like first-person shooters. At the moment I'm playing Command and Conquer: Generals, and the most hardware-intensive game I own is Guild Wars.

The 6200 performs admirably at 2D tasks, and will at some point probably end up in a media center. However, the 3D performance is intolerably poor, even for me. It can barely run my screen saver and even Generals will only run at the very lowest quality or at 800x600, neither of which is a great experience.

I'm not terribly brand conscious, but all else being more or less equal I'd rather have another nVidia card. I'd also like the new one to beat not only my 6200LE but also the Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB in my laptop. Also, I'm a sucker for quiet - I'd prefer a fanless cooler, or a card cheap enough to add a silent (Zalman, unless you can make a better suggestion) cooler without breaking my budget.

So far I've been looking at a 6600LE, 7100GS, 7300LE, and a recertified 7600GS, which is stretching my budget at $80. Obviously I'd like to be as cheap as possible, but how will the performance of any of these be? Do I need to look elsewhere or am I on the right track?

 

a plain 6600 would do the job, and should be easy to passively cool too. you could try a 7300GS too, which i dont think is turbocache, whereas the 7300LE is.

 

Thanks for the fast reply. I should add that TurboCache and HyperMemory are both completely unacceptable, and all the cards I listed I managed to find without TC.

How does a 6600 compare to a 6600LE, provided neither is TurboCache? I found a vanilla 6600 for $20 more than the LE, but it's got a fan and I'll probably have to do something about that. The 7300GS is easier to find but harder to find without TurboCache or a fan.

As for cooling, most cards with reasonable prices also have fans. How well can I get away with passively cooling something in this range by taking off the stock heatsink and using thermal epoxy to stick on an old Socket A cooler?

 

Sorry if my question is redundant, but I thought it was possible to disable TC.

 

A 7300 GT for about $80 on Newegg.
All the new things the geforce 7 series offers. Can be found passively cooled.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814141036
If it can be gamed whit, it should handle your demands.

 

I had actually considered that very card, Oooo. It's expensive, but not needlessly so. However, for the same money I can get an open-box 7600GS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122007R. How noticeable will the difference be, and how much trouble is it worth? A lot of the comments on Newegg (for the retail model of the same card) say they've been getting a fan-cooled version and having to RMA to get the proper card.

I'm also curious about M4RTIN's comment on the 7300GS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145137. That'll go back to my question about cementing on a Socket A cooler, which I can do for $5 in thermal epoxy.

EDIT: Fixed link to 7600GS

 

^ Get the open box 7600GS if you can.

 

Well, I appreciate all the help. I think I'm going to go for the 7600GS - I looked at some benchmarks and I think it'll be more than I need. It's significantly faster than the 7300GT, and for the same price I'd be foolish to pass it up. Here's hoping it shows up with the passive cooler and I don't have to send it back.

 

The stock coolers on the 7x00 series are actually really quiet. Even so, stick with it, as it's worth the $80. Great card.

 

The card showed up today, and as I feared it was actively cooled. However, I went ahead and gave it a try and I shouldn't have been worried. The fan is larger than the one on my 6200LE, and doesn't spin as fast. As a result, when the card is buried away in the case it's more than quiet enough. A little testing has also shown me that it's more than fast enough for my purposes.

Thanks to all who gave their advice.