Graphics looking to get new video card

My ATI Radeon 9550 is getting kind of old, what would you recommend for around $100?
It can play all the games I have, but I need to lower the settings on most
Its AGP, but I have an empty PCI-E x16 slot just waiting for a new card

 

8500 GT @ NewEgg.

That's about the most future proof that you can get for the money.

 

Although the 8500GT is DX10 I would suspect it's far too slow to make any use of it at all, given how much faster the 8600GT, 7900GS & X1950Pro are I would look to one of these but even then the DX10 power of the 8600GT is likely to be insufficient. For reference the 8500GT has half the core power of the 8600GT which in turn has 75% of the power of the 8600GTS. The 8600GTS isn't really any faster than X1950Pro or 7900GS and although the 8600GT is decently faster than the 7600GT or X1650XT I suspect the 8500GT is a fair bit slower. Anyway I did a quick check of the cheapest of each type of card at Newegg, before going for one check if there's a better MIR (Mail-in Rebate) or if you can pay slightly more for a version with a superior cooler, bundle or warranty.

$88-$10MIR=$78 X1650Pro

$90-$20MIR=$70 7600GS

$97 8500GT

$100 X1650XT

$110-$10MIR=$100 7600GT

$130 X1900GT

$140-$30MIR=$110 X1950GT

$148 8600GT

$155-$20MIR=$135 X1950Pro

$155-$15MIR=$140 7900GS

The X1650Pro and 7600GS are similar in speed, the 8500GT is likely to be similar too but also offers DX10 so given the similar pricing the 8500GT makes sense. However the X1650XT & 7600GT (also similar in speed) are a fair bit faster and are only $3 more than the 8500GT, so I'd suggest going for one of those instead. The others are probably pushing your budget too far, unless you will utilise the MIR on the X1950GT as that works out at only $110, a supreme bargain considering it's very nearly as fast as an X1950Pro and faster than $148 8600GT let alone $87 8500GT. HTH.

 

Ah, I'm upgrading from my 9550 as well. I've decided to go with an X800GTO at the moment and then upgrade completely later on in the year.

The X800GTO (w/ DDR3 instead of DDR like most I found) was $150.00 AUD.

 

If you are willing to take a risk, you could look into flashing the X800GTO into an X850XT which would unlike an additional 4 pipes. Just be sure that yours is compatible with the mod first!

 

You should find RivaTuner can report if there are any disabled pipes on your card and allow you to unlock them to see if they can run without artefacts/instability. The X800GTO is similar in speed to an X1650Pro/7600GS, if you can unlock pipes you'll be way up there with the X1650XT/7600GT which, despite the latest cards, is still a nice place to be. Well worth a check.