Recommendations for upgrade from Viper V550 on Asus P2B mobo...

[Eugaet]

I'm looking for recommendations for a video card upgrade. My budget is ~$100, so let me tell you basically what type of performance I'm looking for and what I am currently considering.

Current system:
Asus P2B w/ Celeron 1Ghz (slocket)
768MB RAM
Viper V550 (TNT)

I enjoy games, but would not even remotely consider myself a 'hardcore gamer'. However, I would like to find a card that can handle a majority of recent games (in case I ever have time to play), even if that means turning off a majority of the eye candy to make it run smoothly. Serious Sam 2 plays fine, as far as I'm concerned, on the Viper V550. I most likely will not be playing multiplayer FPSs (maybe the occasional co-op), but I do enjoy the occasional single person FPS if it has a decent story line (SS2 was a slight deviation). Plan on checking out MoH:AA, still haven't checked out NOLF 1/2, might finally see what all the Max Payne hype was about... Mostly enjoy games by Troika, Bioware, Blizzard, etc...RPGs, RTSs...

Current cards I'm looking at are the Radeon 9200 128 or GeForce FX 5200 128 (non-Ultra). I've been checking benchmarks and reviews, and it's left me confused as ever...depending on which review/benchmark you read, either is better than the other...makes me wonder if I'm reading truly unbiased reviews or if they are infected with fanboyism. Also considered the Radeon AIW 8500DV, which would allow me to get rid of the 1394 card taking up a PCI slot.

I haven't checked yet to see if any of the above cards have issues with Linux, but whichever one I choose will need to be Linux-compatible...shouldn't be a problem, but you never know...

I can go slightly higher with the budget if it's worth it. I prefer retail over OEM, don't mind rebates, and currently have a Best Buy $25 gift certificate burning a hole in my wallet...

Any recommendations, along with rationale, are appreciated. ATI/nVidia fanboys and representatives, please do not apply.

 

[BenSkywalker]

What level functionality are you looking for under Linux? You state roughly $100, would an extra ~$30 blow your budget?

If you are willing to use an online site you can get either a GeForce FX 5600(non Ultra) or a Radeon 9600(non Pro) off of NewEgg for around $130. Those are retail box offerings, not OEM, and either one of them would be significantly better then the 5200, 9200 or 8500. Given that you are still running a Diamond Viper V550(I used to have one of those, think I still have it here somewhere) any of the boards you move to are going to give you a major improvement on all fronts in terms of speed and IQ, but which board you should go with depends on a few things.

nVidia's Linux drivers are still far ahead of ATi's, I don't think too many people would argue with that. If you aren't worried about full 3D functionality under Linux, then ATi may be a better way to go. Speaking for myself I ran in to a lot of driver issues under Windows with the R9500Pro, but that was several driver revisions ago and my problems revolved around gaming(I have about 40GB worth of games currently installed on my HD, and older games that I don't care for that much regularly come off in favor of newer titles). Given that you are running a circa '98 video card, I'm assuming that you like to hold on to boards for a while?

Longhorn is coming in a couple of years and it will require a DX9 board for the full effect of the OS, the 5200 should be able to handle it, but not the others you listed. Both the 5600 and the 9600 would handle it much better, not to mention they are far faster for gaming. The 9600 will likely retain an edge in games that require high levels of PS 2.0 performance in the future in terms of performance or quality depending on how the app is coded, although their will likely be some exceptions(Doom3 more then likely).

For upcoming games that you are likely to be interested in, most of them are not too demanding on systems anyway, although Knights of The Old Republic will likely be fairly stressful on vid cards. Either the 5600 series from nVidia or the 9600 series from ATi should run the game quite nicely. Actually, with either of those boards your processor will likely be the bottleneck the majority of time you are playing games unless you crank the detail settings up considerably- AA+AF all details cranked(vs lowering them as you are now).

Every game you listed will play very well on either board, light years beyond how your V550 does for sure I see it as a gaming performance v Linux functionality question, ATi for the former and nVidia for the latter.

 

[Lawranch]

Geforce 3's are cheap now. You should be able to get one for about $50. It is a nice upgrade. You should be able to find selling a geforce 4 4200 cheap in the For Sale forums.

 

[Eugaet]

Would someone mind reviewing the following benchmarks and tell me what they think (they're near the bottom, you have to scroll past a lot of video card pictures...)?

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/retro/retro2003-2.html

They benchmarked 63 video cards on an Asus P2B. I had decided on a Ti4200, but with my current system, it looks like I won't see much of an improvement over a Geforce3 Ti200. Also, will I even notice the difference between 128MB vs. 64MB on my current setup? Doesn't really look like I will according to their benchmarks...

Any opinions regarding the 'Retro' benchmarks are appreciated.

Current system:
Mobo: Asus P2B
CPU: Celeron 1Ghz
RAM: 768MB

 

[Johnbear007]

geforce 4 ti4200

 

[Eugaet]

I decided on a GF4 Ti4200. I found a good one for a good price, but I can't find any information on the card anywhere. Anyone ever heard of a GF4 Ti4200 64MB by MSI with model number MS-8879-040? It's not even listed on the MSI discontinued/archived pages...