Video cards : need advise on USED cards...

[Vincent Trouilliez]

Hi there, gamers or just people in the know...

I have currently a modest on-board Geforce 2 MX 32 MB.
Not only graphics are not great in my favorite game (X-Plane) but it
also gives me troubles because of the driver.

I looked at modern cards briefly, but :

1) too expensive for my budget
2) not compatible with my old AGP x4 connector (AGP x8 and PCI Express
seems the norm now)
3) often have fans

I don't intend to change my motherboard anytime soon, nor do I want to
spend fortune never mind increase the noise level of my machine.

But this 3D card arena is a real jungle for me, and I would appreciate
if the list could suggest me a few models of cards that would fit my
needs :

1) "old" card that works on AGP x4 connectors (I have an nForce chipset,
MSI K7N 420 Pro motherboard)

2) is fanLESS / silent

3) is as recent/performant as possible, to give me as much an
improvement as possible, over my current GeForce 2 32MB


All I know is that I gathered that for the ATI side, I am looking at
"Radeon" cards ?? but since they are pretty much all called this way, it
doesn't really help me much to make a choice.

I understand that ATI drivers have had ups and downs, so I would
appreciate cards for which the Ubuntu driver works well.

I looked at the ATI web site but failed to find an overview of their
current and discontinued products, that would present the relevant
parameters (connector type, fanless or not, relative performance
level...), so it's a bit useless.


Thanks much in advance for any help/info/advice...


--
Vince