Recommendations for a PCI card

[scotsdale007]

I need to add a better video card than the onboard one the motherboard currently has but it lacks an AGP slot. I have 2 spare PCI slots and wanted some recommendations. It's the wifes machine and it does her stuff fine but I installed Battlefield 1942 and it will only run in 640x480 with the integrated Intel graphics and even then it is choppy and slow. System is a P4 2.0 Ghz with 512 MB system memory of which the graphics is using 64 MB which I thought would be enough but apparently not. Any suggestions are welcome.

[Damian]

I think the best PCI video cards out now are the Radeon 9000 and FX5200. Not sure which to reccommend.

[Overclocker550]

your options with pci are limited, also pci cards are slower and cost more than agp. you could get a geforce4 mx 420 pci for like $40-50 but itll perform like a geforce sdr or so, still over double the onboard's performance

[Beast Of Blight]

I use the GeForce MX440.

Its an awesome little card, 60+FPS on most games I play, depending on the game I can have all or most eye candy, and play at atleast 1024 and higher.

[CrashOveride]

My AGP GeForce 4 MX 440 plays any game I throw at it at decent res and texture so I wouild guess that the PCI one is pretty close, if you are low on money I would get that otherwise I would consider the FX5200 and 9000 and get cheaper of the pair (ATi if they are the same).

[scotsdale007]

Thanks for the info everyone. I was looking around today and came across some GF4 440 and an ATI 9000 that were within the budget. I might go the 440 route.

This may turn out to be the cheapest PC I,ve put together. I was given 2 year old Gateways that had been struck by lightning, we have lots of that here. Both were identical P4 2.0, 128 meg , 40 gig UDMA 100 drives, CD's, floppies. I spent 60 bucks on a motherboard and swapped eveything over. Works great. I tried to be too cheap and use a board with onboard video and I still have to buy a card. Still a good deal I think. Maybe I'll get a decent board for the next one.;)

[CrashOveride]

Originally posted by scotsdale007
Thanks for the info everyone. I was looking around today and came across some GF4 440 and an ATI 9000 that were within the budget. I might go the 440 route.

This may turn out to be the cheapest PC I,ve put together. I was given 2 year old Gateways that had been struck by lightning, we have lots of that here. Both were identical P4 2.0, 128 meg , 40 gig UDMA 100 drives, CD's, floppies. I spent 60 bucks on a motherboard and swapped eveything over. Works great. I tried to be too cheap and use a board with onboard video and I still have to buy a card. Still a good deal I think. Maybe I'll get a decent board for the next one.;)

ya... that would be the way to go unless its just a server of some sort (unless maybe its a game server...)

[Janissary]

scotsdale007 you are likely to get a lot of problems if you install a PCI card on your system, we bought a PCI card for a friends Compaq computer and it wouldn't work because there was no way to turn off the onboard card. I recommend you to get some information about such kind of hardware conflict. It took me days of research and only a BIOS flash would solve the problem so just be warned before buying.

[Jawsome]

Xtasy 9100 PCI's were on clearance at CompUSA for cheap, like 20 bucks. But heres a link to the online one.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product%5Fcode=300866&csearch=&cmid=&pfp=srch1

39 after rebate isn't too shabby.

[Damian]

Ooh, didn't know there was a PCI R9100... in that case, get that by all means. The 9000, FX5200 and mx440 are heaviliy crippled.

[Beast Of Blight]

Originally posted by Janissary
scotsdale007 you are likely to get a lot of problems if you install a PCI card on your system, we bought a PCI card for a friends Compaq computer and it wouldn't work because there was no way to turn off the onboard card. I recommend you to get some information about such kind of hardware conflict. It took me days of research and only a BIOS flash would solve the problem so just be warned before buying.


Device manager - Display Adaptors - Compaq Adaptor [ whatever its called ] - disable

[drshivas]

You could also go for a used 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 or 3000 PCI on ebay.

[dguy6789]

the pci 9100 is crippled far mroe then the 9000 or fx5200, the clocks are far to low for my tastes, get a 9000 if you want speed and dx8 features, or an fx5200 if you want some speed and dx9 features. i reccomend the 9000, because as of half life 2 benchies, fx5200 in dx9 mode is super slow.