Radeon x700pro or x850pro?

I run a P4 2.66, 1gig of ramm, and desperately need to upgrade my video card. I play EverQuest and am tired of seeing things low res. Looking to spend around $150.oo, has to be AGP, and have boiled it down to 2 cards. The Radeon X700 Pro and the Radeon X850 Pro are on the top of my list so far. I'm trying to keep with the GDDR3 as it seems it gives more performance. I looked into the All in Wonder X800 XT, but have heard all the extra applications (that I don't need) and drivers can be a pain to deal with and could cause issues. Another concern is where I buy it from, I don't want a huge long drawn out hassled process if I need to return it. Obviously, I want the best card I can get for roughly $150.oo, and I don't want to be disappointed wishing I'd got something else.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

x850 definitely beats out the x700. Do you HAVE to go with ATI? because a 6600gt, 6800, 6800GS, or 6800XT (only the XFX one is good) would be just as good or even better. The 6800GS is the best card for that price for AGP right now. Personally, id reccomend the XFX 6800XTreme 256mb as it seems to come very close to a 7600GT/6800GS/GT in benchmarks despite its lower pixel pipe count.

Anyways, here are some good AGP cards for that price range:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2E16814143045,N82E16814150157,N82E16814170082

dont really know where all the 6600GTs got off to....

If you do get the XFX 6800XTreme, just make sure you get the one with the 256-bit interface

 

I would definately consider a nvidia card also. Like viper_boy403 said, the 6800GS is a strong AGP card. The new 7600GT AGP cards are out also with newer technology and shader model 3.0 which the older x800 cards don't have.

 

I've burned up a really nice MSI 4200Geforce4 ti, never been extremely happy with the other Geforce cards I've owned, and my wife has a Radeon 9600pro that I'm comletely jealous over. Her graphics are clean, no bugs/hitching etc, and even without shader 3.0, I'd still be overly happy. Besides, this only has to get me by untill I absolutely have to switch over to a PCI-express. I can see after looking a bit closer, it's a no brainer going with the x850 over the x700. I did like the XFX Geforce 6800XTreme, but again past experiences lean me toward the x850. Also, if I understand correctly, you can flash the bios to open up additional pipelines on the x850? Would be very interested in seeing a benchmark comparison.

EDIT: Would this be accurate? Benchmark Comparisons

 

yea thats pretty accurate but it doesnt take into account overclocking potential as well as pipeline and shader unlocking. With my 6800XTreme overclocked to 500/1300 i get 11700 in 3dmark03 which is only about 1000 below a 7600GT PCI-E

And yes, i believe that you can flash certain models of the x850 though im not sure which ones