Graphics cards - which one?Follow

G'day Kaolian. If you had your free choice forgetting price etc,

Which card would be your best pick today?

I feel inclined to go for the Raedon 9800 XT chipset, where I live my best option is for a Gigabyte made card.

The alternative is an Asus nVidia 5950 Ultra set up.

The benchmark tests seem to show the 9800 as better all round despite the slower clock speeds.

Would you consider either of these?

Does SOE and Nvidia still have the joint partnership agreement signed way back in 2002? SOE has taken to supporting more and more of ATI products, however, the reasons behind this may have less to do with contractual relationships and more with the consolidation of the video card market (can you say sianara Matrox). Are Sony and Nvida still co-developing?

Bah, Ive struck a major snag

My motherboard is only AGP*4.

Are AGP*8 cards backwards compatible? (Temporary solution I know but its the same old catch 22. The MB is also Sdram 512Mb only, so once I start it will have to be the whole kit and kaboodle.)

Thanks