PCI Vid Card Recommendations

[badgers]

I am trying to build a Cad workstation. All the cad work is in 2D and AutoCAD does not take advantage of any vid card acceleration for the work that we do.
I want a PCI because I am going to use a 440BX chipset and OC a PIII700E to 133FSB.
I am trying to keep everything within spec,(except the CPU )

The hart of my problem is this.
Which vid cards have drivers for Win2K
when I look at pricewatch it seems like a lot of those cards are pretty old.

Thank you for your time and have a good day

 

[PowerProtein]

Any good or semi-good pci video cards are Voodoo 3's. But i don't think they will have W2K drivers, they're not even around anymore. So i don't know what else to suggest. Besides if i was building a cad station, i wouldn't rely on overclocking that much. I don't think you can get a p3 700 @ 100 to 133 very easily, but you can try. Also you have to watch those pci frequencies cause that's usually the problem.

 

[badgers]

why would the PCI frequency be a problem?

 

[Sony]

What about a GeForce 2 MX you can get that for PCI and it's like less than $100 now on Pricewatch.com I got one for my compaq 7596 (Sorry my dad bought it for me He literally doesn't know how to turn a computer on) it works great the only trouble I got was it was when I first got it I had to disable the onboard video because the drivers were conflicting but it works great for me now.

 

[SickBoy]

Yeah, I'd say the MX as well. Best driver support for Win2K of the good PCI cards. If you spend any more cash on a PCI video card, it's pretty much wasted because you don't have a lot of speed or bandwidth to work with when you're running a video card off the PCI bus.

SickBoy

 

[badgers]

thanks, do you use the 64 meg or the 32 meg card?

 

[Sony]

The PCI card I think only comes in 32meg form but it supports dual monitors if you want it.

 

[badgers]

sweet! dual monitors Rock for CAD work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

 

[badgers]

am I looking at the wrong thing on Pricewatch. The AGP card is like 65 buck with shipping and the PCI card is around $100 with shipping. That sucks!

Do most of the AGP cards seem to handle the 88Mhz speed?

PS When I look in the database I see a ton of people hitting 933 or above with a 700E chip.
who do you know that is having problems?

I am starting a small consulting company doing programming for AutoCAD and some drafting work. I will be the one using this computer, so its not like I will have 20 of these things to maintain.
I can make sure that the ventilation is good and such. I used a OC celleron300A at 450 a few years ago and never had a problem.
I was trying to make a system that kept every thing in spec except the CPU. If a system is stable then its stable. Hell, most programming and cad work the cpu is at idle waiting for me to do something. The only time it is worked is when I compile(about 5 sec job) or regenerating a drawing(10 sec job). If I run prime 95 , sisoft sandra burnin test continuous , and maybe a 3dmark all stable for 24 hours each. I will bet that the system can take a compile or two without overheating.
It worked for me before, I think it will work again.
I am sure that I don't know everything, thats why I'm here
But with a little help I am sure it will work fine.

The thing I have no experience with is Raid 0 array.
I am looking at the BX133-Raid.
Any Raid experiences out there????
Thank you for your time and have a good day
PS(do AGP cards support dual monitors?)

 

[PowerProtein]

badgers (May 02, 2001 08:29 p.m.):
why would the PCI frequency be a problem?

PCI runs at 33 Mhz, if you overclock the PCI by 4 or 5 Mhz than some devices might stop working and the system will crash. The PCI gets overclocked when you raise the FSB on your motherboard.

For example 133 FSB divided by 4 equals to 33 PCI frequency, if you overclock your FSB to 150, than your PCI jumps to 37.5 which means that one stupid device may not like it and the computer will not boot up. Because PCI is very sensitive to overclocking.

 

[Sony]

Yea I got my GF2MX for $108 dollars off Mixpc.com but I think they are cheaper now.

 

[Sony]

I just founf the price on mixpc it's $101 for the one with dual monitor support the one with single monitors is $95 but I think it was worth it. It works great for me. Just if you have onboard video disable it because it will conflict.

 

[UnseenMenace]

Another advantage of getting the Gforce is that with modifications it displays as a professional Quadro card.

http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/quadro/

Duron 800 @ 1035 with Global Win FOP-32 <-- Going faster again
Abit KT7A-Raid Mobo
512 mb (133 mhz Crucial Stuff)
Elsa Gforce with Blue Orb (modified to display as a Quadro and overclocked http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/quadro/ )
Sound Blaster Live
Full Tower With 5 Fans (120 mm) with seperate PSU

 

[badgers]

thanks sony.
thanks unseen menace
That is the kind of stuff that I love about Overclocker forums.

PowerProtein I only intend to raise the FSB to 133, but thanks for the heads up.

 

[badgers]

mennace:
doing the resistor swap kills the dual monitor feature doesn't it?

When I look at pricewatch under
GeForce2 MX 200 32 mb
I see brands of
generic, shuttle, inno3d, evga ......

I thought that because they all had the nVidia chips they were the same.
With these mods is one brand better then another?

thank you for your time and have a good day

 

[coaiti]

if u want great dual monitor support the card to go with is Matrox 3450[I think that is the model] I dunno if it comes in PCI

 

[Sony]

I got the one from eVGA it works great just remember if you have onboard video disable it or it will conflict wit the other Detenator drivers.