AMD Sempron 2000
nVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 256mb
768mb ram

that pretty much tells you how lame it is.

ahh, nice. I hadn't been looking for a GPU recently so I haven't read anything about the pcie 2.0 stuff.

Guess I could look at other cards then.

However, I don't really do any gaming on my PC so, its not a huge deal to me. my 8600GT works great for everything I have tried so far. COD4 was about the most powerful game I have played thus far and it worked flawlessly.

Card performance will always depend on how much he wants to spend, relative to performance.
For $50, a 9500GT is more than adequate enough to play most games at an acceptable level.

Work: Q6600, 9600GT 1GB, 3GB DDR2 667, 500GB Seagate, 430w Thermaltake PSU, VistaX86
Game: E8400@3.9ghz, HD4870 512GB, 4GB DDR2 1000 G Skill, 1TB Samsung, 500GB Seagate, 600w OCZ GamerXStream PSU, VistaX64

for not much more money you can get something that can max out everything you throw at it expect crisis... why not spend it

Hey, if you're already using an 8600GT, I'm not sure why you would even want to upgrade if you're a light PC gamer.

It's better to wait until your VGA card won't properly play whatever new GPU crushing game you absolutely must play, otherwise you're just buying into the regular upgrade cycle without real reason.

Better cards will always be available in the future and the current fastest cards will always be available for significantly less when that happens.

Set how much you want to spend on a VGA solution before you start shopping for cards. Once you have a budget, start looking for good values, rebates, etc. and in most cases, you'll be able to buy a better card for the same amount of money when you find the best deal.

Here's my choices. Really comes down the 512MB v 1GB for $30.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130435

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130440

if your happy with it then i wouldn;t worry about it

Simple; no reason if it's just for playing games. The E8400 system I built runs just about everything I play at 1920x1080 at well over 60fps. Crysis plays in the 40fps range w/ high settings. I stopped playing Crysis/Warhead months ago. 

No point in spending over $300 on a new single GPU card, or even going with a Crossfire config and adding another 4870.

The Q9400@3.2ghz, HD4870x2 rig (a $500 card when bought) I built really doesn't run most games significantlty faster, but it is a solid workstation for 3DS Max.

When I build a new i7/X58 system, it won't be so I can play games on it; it will be for video editing and 3DS Max.

Both are crap.  I could get an HD 4770 for $110 that outperforms both of those.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=4770&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=295&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=6

The benefit of 1GB cards is primarily for running higher resolutions.

If cost is really an issue, and you're using a 1680x1050 or even a 1920x1200 display, the extra $30 is better spent on a faster GPU. For $130, you could buy a HD4850 (some with 1GB of memory), which is faster than a 9800GT.