New Card in an Old Computer

[Thoth93]

I'd like to upgrade the video card in an older machine that I have. It's not impressive at all (although it was when new):

Athlon 900 mhz
ASUS K7v motherboard
384k PC 133 Ram
Windows ME
32 megabyte Geforce 2 MX
Soundblaster Live 5.1
40 gigabyte internal hard drive
52x CD drive
External USB 2.0 CDRW
Usb 2.0 network adapter
External USB 2.0 80 gigabyte hard drive

It's still quite capable for Internet and certain games, although it's by no means a hotrod.

If you were going to stick a different video card in it to perhaps help with video playback (I was going to throw in an internal DVD drive soon) and to get a bit more performance out of the games it can run capably, what would you suggest? I was thinking maybe a cheap 9600, SE or PRO.

 

[Marsumane]

I think the 9600pro is a bit of overkill (mainly on price) for a 900mhz system. If you want basically the same performance, but to sacrifice DX9 for only like 2/3 to 1/2 of the cost, get the GF4 TI4200 128mb for around 60 to 80 bucks. Your cpu will be the bottleneck on this card, but it is cheap enough to reccomend because anything worse then this card probably isnt that much cheaper and isnt nearly as good for the amount of money that ud be paying. make sure to get the 128mb version for video playback.

 

[Corporate Thug]

ti4200

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Thoth93
384k PC 133 Ram

wow, I didn't know they made PC133 DIMMS that small. Even my first PC had 1024k RAM.
/sarcasm

no SE if you're playing any games...64 bit memory is the anti-game, I'd say plain Radeon 9600 at a minimum. Get as good a card as you can afford, then later upgrade your RAM/processor/motherboard to support it.

 

[Avalon]

What PSU do you have?
I know it probably won't matter, but I'm just curious.
A 9600 will do fine, but you may want a Ti4200. It would be a wee bit cheaper, and I think it gives better performance. Don't quote me on it, others would know the gf4 better than me

 

[Cawchy87]

mabye even a GeForce ti200 or ti500 if you can get your hands on one. They are dirt cheap and are quite good cards.

 

[pukemon]

Well there is a huge performance difference between a 9600 SE and Pro, the Pro being roughly 4x as fast in a best/worst case scenario.

An old Geforce3 (Ti200 < original < Ti500) would work great. So would an ATI Radeon 8500 or 9100.

 

[jagec]

Ti4200 would be good. And please, get a different OS, even 98 is better than ME

 

[AG73]

would that recommendation (ti4200) still apply with a 2 year old dell p4 1.6ghz with PC133 RAM (512MB)? or should I get a 9800Pro? thanks

 

[S4M33R]

It all depends on how soon you plan on upgrading the rest of your system... 9800 pro would have long term value, but only if you could upgrade your motherboard and cpu to something that can handle AGP8X within say a month or two.

EDIT: the 9800 pro would work pretty decently with the Dell, but again you need AGP 8x.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I'd recommend getting a new CPU/Mobo/RAM; even a good 'value' upgrade like an Athlon XP 2500+ or Mobile 2600+, an Abit NF7 or NF7-S and 512MB of PC3200 would work wonders.

Do you want to make games a bit faster or do you want to make EVERYTHING faster (with a CPU/Mobo/RAM upgrade)?

The MX is crap too, but if you upgraded to a new system, and then picked up a Radeon 8500 or Ti4200, it would complete a very good upgrade that would make your system WAY faster and not break the bank at the same time - especially if you buy used parts on the FS/FT section of Anandtech.

Best of luck!

 

[Bartokomus]

I think AG73 that if you could get your hands on a 4200 (esp the 128 8x version), you'd be happy. Mine was highly o/c-able until it met its untimely end *ahem*. for $50 now, save your money for a total system upgrade...

 

[Cawchy87]

I ran a ti200 on my dell (2.0ghz) for 1.5 years and loved it. Cheap card and i could play anygame i wanted to, just without the eye candy. If your not a hardcore gamer and just a casual one like myself the ti200 would serve you quite well. I upgraded to a 9600XT cause i got money for my birthday, but there wasn't anything bad i can say about the ti200.

PM me if you would like to buy it via heatware or ebay or something. It is just sitting looking pretty in my computer room, so if you want to, PM me.

 

[AG73]

jiffylube, I just am a casual gamer and I'm satisfied with the speed of my computer overall, but I would like to make games run a bit smoother. My current card is the embarrasingly old ATI radeon LE (remember those?), equivalent to a radeon 7200. My AGP bus is only 4x, not 8x. So perhaps the 9800 pro would be overkill? Maybe I'll go for a 4200. thanks

 

[AG73]

jiffylube, I just am a casual gamer and I'm satisfied with the speed of my computer overall, but I would like to make games run a bit smoother. My current card is the embarrasingly old ATI radeon LE (remember those?), equivalent to a radeon 7200. My AGP bus is only 4x, not 8x. So perhaps the 9800 pro would be overkill? Maybe I'll go for a 4200. thanks

updated:
S4M33R, I checked the forums and concensus is that AGP 8x offers little performance advantage over 4x in games, and that an 8x card will work on a 4x board. Then perhaps the 9800 Pro would be a decent buy for my old dell (1.6ghz p4, 512MB pc133 RAM, 4xAGP)?

 

[Zephyr106]

To the 1.6 Gb P4 owner: a 9800p may be overkill for your system. With your CPU and memory bottlenecking you, you may want to get something like a Geforce 5900XT, which may offer the same performance boost as the 9800p for $20-30 cheaper.

Zephyr

 

[Nebor]

Fat guy in a little coat....