I have an AMD Athlon XP 3000, 1gig of RAM, XP Pro SP2. Currently I have a Radeon 9250 128mb card installed. When I try to play any game, I can't have full resolution because I get lagging. Even a simple game like Command & Conquer will bog down when I have a large battle.

I'm looking to spend around $200 on a new card. But I want one that will push some demanding games without chopping up. I don't have a preference between ATI or nVidia, but I'm looking for performance. I do have a PCI Express slot on my mb.

Could it be my CD Drive that is slowing things down? I have a new Sony DVR. I am at a loss; I want to play kickass games on my computer, but I don't know how to get it there.

Someone please help me!

it could be any number of things, really. do you have a lot of background programs running? have you defragmented your hard drive recently (once a month or more is good)?

if those don't help, tom's hardware had a good guide to video cards. i just got the x1950xt based on it's recommendation.

I wouldn't say I have a lot of programs in the background. Probably 10 or so. Yes, I defragment quite often. Sometimes turning off the Virtual Memory in order to defrag the whole volume.

When I had a 64mb 9250 (It was AGP) with a 2600+ and 512 RAM (my very very first system)
I had no lag at all in games.
But I did play some lower-end games.
Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Unreal Tournament 2004, some Counter Strike
anyway, a 200$ pci-express card.. I'd go with a 7900GS. I think that's their price now..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814150202

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814130056

The EVGA 7900 GS. Powerful, cheap. More than enough to play any DX9 games that are already out or will come out soon.

$155 after rebates.

I prefer EVGA cards because EVGA is the only one whose warranty covers overclocking. Which is a nice plus.

how do you overclock a graphics card?

Pretty simple. Nvidia Cards can be overclocked with a tool Nvdia made called Coolbits. It's just a matter of typing in the clock speeds you want.

Vid card overclocking:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/141

I also believe that AnandTech did an article on this - but can't find the link.

ATI has a program called ATI Tool which works pretty well. it lets you set the memory and core clocks and then test them for errors while also monitoring temperature.

Well, if you're planning on getting Vista, and playing DirectX 10 games and stuff, I'd wait a little while to see what DX10 cards come out, and see if they go down into your price range a little better. Currently the only DX10 cards are the fast, but highly expensive GeForce 8800GTS/GTX's, but within a month or two ATI should whip out some DX10 cards, and the 8800's should drop the price a bit. If you must have one now, then yeah the eVGA 7900GS would be a nice pick.

Your best bet would probably be with the 7900GS. But they also have 7600's with higher clock ratings than 7950's.
XFX's Fatal1ty
7600 = Higher clock
7900 = 256-bit video memory