my dilemaFollow

I built a Shuttle about 5 years ago (maybe even longer, whenever they 1st came on the market) and put an ATI 9800 Pro graphic card in it. I spent a lot of money on the card and have gotten a lot of game out of it. With the amount of heat my Shuttle puts off (even with my modifications) I am happy that it lasted that long. I had a GeForce 5500 lying around so that's what I am playing with.

Now I am trying to decide what to buy. I need a PCI, DDR (1st generation), and would like at least a 256. My MacBook Pro has an ATI X1600 card that runs very smooth and fast. I have looked at that card for my Shuttle but I seriously doubt that the same model would run that smooth on my Shuttle. I think my processor is a 2800 AMD and my laptop is a Pentium 2.33 duo.

Looking at graphic card reviews can be misleading. Joe could rate a graphic card high for gaming but that doesn't mean it will run EQII. I know that from experience. I bought the GeForce 5500 for the 2nd Shuttle I built on the recommendations of a gamer. For him it was an awesome card but for me it plays but only at low settings. I think the problem is that he wasn't playing EQII.

So do any of you techie type peops have any suggestions? I don't know that I would go with another ATI because the 1st 2 cards I bought were bad and had to be replaced. The 1st one was bad out of the box and the 2nd one went bad within a couple of weeks.

Thanks
Zoo

I have an 512 mb ATI Radeon X1900 XT and it works great. It sucks that you have been stuck with bad cards, but I have always had an ATI and never had problems.