fx5200 or x1300

[blackersabbath]

Hi guys, I have a PCI only motherboard and have an fx5200 on it. I was wondering if anyone can tell me if the x1300 is better or if i should just get some memory instead. I just want to run Half-Life 2 a little smoother than it is running

[White_Pawn]

x1550 is the best PCI offering. Otherwise, i'd say take a look at a 6200.

[Trap05]

Buy the board/cpu combo you asked about in your other thread. It would be a much better upgrade than any underpowered PCI card.

[funnyperson1]

I saw your post in the AMD section, get your $100 mobo/cpu combo and a cheap PCIE card to go along with it. Buying a PCI card doesn't really make any sense. If you need HL2 to run a tad better, overclock your 5200.

[blackersabbath]

ok, i will run my 5200 for a while until i get the money for a pci-e. how would i go about overclocking it though? i have overclocked cpu's before but not gpu's.

[funnyperson1]

Theres a bunch of software out there to do this, but ATITool is probably the easiest to use. When you open the program there will be a bunch of sliders and associated clock speeds above it. Raise the clock speed by like 5-10 Mhz, and then click scan for artifacts to make sure there aren't any graphical abnormalities, I usually run scan for artifacts for about ten minutes, and if I don't see anything I bump the speed up a bit more and repeat testing.

Alternatively you could just click Find Max Core and ATITool will try to automate this process for you, but its a bit dangerous as sometimes it doesn't pick up artifacts this way, and just keeps going. If you sit there watching the animation though, you should be able to spot them yourself and stop the further clocking.

If you experience any instability in games, go back to default speed (or a previously determined safe overclock).

[blackersabbath]

ATItool will work for an nvidia card?

[jiggamanjb]

yes

[blackersabbath]

cool, I will have to try that out after I get done with this long 16 hour shift

[blackersabbath]

I was wondering if I should even attempt to overclock the FX5200. I am getting diagonal lines on my screen and don't know if it is the card acting up or something else

[Albuquerque]

If you're already getting video corruption before attempting to overclock it, then I suggest you just leave it be. God(s) know what else might be waiting to go *pop* if you push it too hard...

An x1300 would be a considerable step up from where you are now, and it would be cheap. Obviously there are faster options on PCI, but at least the pricetag on a 1300 will be nice and cheap :)

[blackersabbath]

My new rig has a PCI-E on it (when it gets here) so I will be upgrading cards to something newer. I am thinking x1950pro or something of that nature. If the onboard graphics on my new biostar board are better than the FX5200 I will be overclocking the card just for practice. If I blow up an inferior card, I won't be too worried about it. I paid 200 bucks for this old rig with a 24" trinitron monitor so it isn't that big a deal

[Albuquerque]

Yeah, the 1950 is a good bang-for-the-buck. If you want something faster, look into the 7950GT series of cards, albeit at a price premium of about $75 more than the 1950's. The 7950 cards seem to be the fastest thing available on AGP at this point.

And I guess if you blow up the FX5200 it won't be a huge loss ;)

[funnyperson1]

Yeah, the 1950 is a good bang-for-the-buck. If you want something faster, look into the 7950GT series of cards, albeit at a price premium of about $75 more than the 1950's. The 7950 cards seem to be the fastest thing available on AGP at this point.

And I guess if you blow up the FX5200 it won't be a huge loss ;)

Err, hes getting a PCIE setup now.

[Albuquerque]

D'oh, was still stuck on the AGP thought process from his old rig :( My bad...

[blackersabbath]

My old rig doesn't even have AGP lol Emachines ftl... Like I said before though, if the onboard graphics suck I will be forced to use the PCI FX5200. If the onboard is better than the card I will try to OC it and see how far it will go before I blow it up. Hopefully one of the two will last me until the new cards come out so I can get a good one cheap.

[blackersabbath]

Well, tried to OC the old FX5200 but it kept freezing up so I guess its a no go on the OC