I put a 1600 in my kids computer a bit over a year ago and it does a good job. Lets him run Crysis & his Halo games as well as doing a good bit of video editing.

Edit: Looking around the price may be a bit high AGP...... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131070

PCIE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131145

For $80, I'm assuing it's AGP?   The videocard is a bit old, depends what you want to play with it.   I don't recommend it if it's pci express.

I had a 1950 Pro, the card above the 1650, Agree with Blitz^$, only if its AGP, if you have PCIeX then you are better off with a newer card than a 1650. The best agp card made is the Ati 3850 but it would be stunted by a single core processor, so value for money the 1950pro would be the one to go for,

What Screen resolution are you going to run at, what are your other system specs, CPU, RAM, HDD, OS and what games do you play? 

You can get a far better card for $80.

But, as others have said, is this for an AGP system or a PCI-E system?

it's AGP, My system is AMD64 3000+ 2Ghz , 1.5Gb RAM, Windows XP SP3 and HDD is 160Gb seagate.

games i play, well , call of duty 4 and all the others in the series, far cry and far cry 2 umm simcity 4, sims 2. plus a fair bit of photoshop work. I looked at other cards but they were all over $120 to $150 and most were PCI-e. Getting harder and harder to find a half decent AGP card.

I should add that my current card is a ATi 9600 pro 256Mb and it allows me to play all the games listed above with the exception of fear 2 (which i can still play but only by dropping the resolution right down) all the other i can play quite happily at 1280 x 1024 with no problems.

Still, the X1650pro is a $50 card.  Unless we're talking AUD, anyway.  What do the 3650s run there?  Possibly a 2600pro?  How about a 1950pro/GT?

The 1650pro is about 2-2.5 steps up from where you're at.  The 3650 is another 2 steps up from that.  The 1950 is another 2-2.5 steps up from that.  (I have a 1950 as well, and, as you can tell, I like it.)

Wow, super cool, Love the older systems, Now the AMD 3000+ is not a bad chip, does overclock as well easily to 2.3ghz even with stock cooler if the Mobo allows it, enough ram as well, I guess the thing is how much longer you will keep the system and how much is it worth spending the extra money on a graphics card for it, Now the 1650 Pro is definately a step up on the 9600 and you will notice a difference, and for the amount spent its a worthwile upgrade,

here is a good example on new-egg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102073R

I think though the 1950 pro  is far far superior than the 1650 but a lot more expensive, now it rocks for DX9 on Windows XP but s not DX10 capable, which is not a problem if you never plan to run Vista on that Box, the downside is that it needs 36 Amps on hte 12 volt rails, (2 molex connectors to power it ) which means you need at least a 550 watt generic powersupply that has dual 12volt rails, i had one of these with my old P4 socket 478 and needed to upgrade the power supply to get it to run,

Here is a good example of one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129077

But saying that, I think if you are to do the upgrade on your machine then this has to be the card for you, Inbetween the two in price and a good card to boot, the newer 3650, it has definately got more oomph than the 1650 and does not need a small nuclear power station sat along side just to power it, its quiet and DX 10 to boot if ever you do want to play Vista or Windows 7 and its not that expensive if you were looking at $80 for a 1650 It will play all the games you specify at 1280x1024 and maybe a few of them with the eye candy above medium and definately AA on far Cry (Still better than Far Cry 2 in my opinion, game has a point, Far Cry 2 go here kill go other side of map, kill some more, and kill everyone inbetween and do that till 100% game complete lol)

here is a good sample of this card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102814

Overall, I think the CPU will slightly bottleneck the 1950 and 3650 but not so much that you notice it on 1280x1024, the real slowdown on your pc would be games that cane the AI such as Real-Time Strategy games and even things like Colin Mcrae Dirt or Need for Speed Pro Street where a single core just does not have the speed necessary,

Over-all I would go for the 3650

Please Peeps feel free to put in your input on these choices

the 3650's here in bendigo run at $160 to $180 so i don't really want to spend that much, especially seeing as my system is not a hardcore beast. I am thinking the X1650 might be the way to go. I had a look on ebay as well and the X1650 cards are pretty standard priced brand new from between $75 and $90 so i think i am getting a good deal. Thanks heaps for everyones input, it's much appreciated

Wowow, hardware is expensive where you are, yup if those are the prices you can get then yup the 1650 is the best, any more than that would be a bit of a waste of money really, best of luck

What type of RAM does your 9600 have? DDR2? It's important to know, since being an older computer, it might now recognize cards with a newer faster standard, like GDDR3.  I bought a geforce 6800XT card to upgrade my older computer, and the card wouldnt send signals to the screen. Turns out that card's GDDR3 RAM wasnt being recognized by the computer's board.  I think the 1650pro has DDR2, so you would be ok.  The HD 2600 PRO and the HD 3650 have DDR2 too.  The X1950pro does GDDR3 too. 

I wanted to get a newer, dx10 era cards for my older pc, but i have my doubts, since i read that those cards were modified to be AGP, and are not supported by the official ATI drivers.  Anyone with a AGP HD 2000 or 3000 card know if they work with no problems on modern and not so modern games?

For what its worth The ATi card i won at the GUIC wont run WB for crap. Window painting is extrememly laggy.. ironically enough.. runs great with Luna.

Its sitting in my closet now in lieu of my older (and better) Nvidia.

my current 9600 has DDR2 memory and so does this new x1650

Ah, so the x1650 will work with no problems then. 

I agree 100% with vStyler. I had one of those cards. It acted like crap on my machine. I switched to an Nvidia card, and now everything's wonderful.

HOWEVER-- my machine has an intel chip. I have heard that ATI cards work well with AMD processors...