Good card for around 150-200 bux Canadian?

[The_Duggler]

Good card for around 150-200 bux Canadian?

Lol. Ok here's the thing.

My bro has my old 733 mhz PIII CPU and a junky Geforce 4 MX 420 card which I am too terrified to overclock that I don't even want to bother (the freaking thing is so small!! and it lacks any sort of stock cooling!!)

Anyhow If i upgrade the CPU then im gonna hafta get a new Mobo to facilitate the P4 architecture, and you get the idea..it'll cost a lot of $$.

So I've got a 30 dollar Canadian gift certificate for Best Buy (Hell yeah!) and I'm willing to fork out another hundred and twenty or so dollars and I'm just wondering what would be the BEST card i could get for this price, which could be O/Ced easily and safely for good performance (Battlefield 1942 is all we really play. so i just want some manageable frame rates).

Should I be looking at the Radeon lineup (9600, 9200 etc)

OR!

The Geforce FX 5200 (I've heard it's DECENT cus of its DX9 support, but screw that I just want raw speed mostly over fancy features...so what should I go for?)

I'm not sure If freaking best buy even still sells any G4 TI cards but i've heard they rock.

Suggestions for a cheap man?

[Wiggo]

The R9600/P/XT range would be the one to consider in the decent DX9 performance category but I'm not sure of the cost of them over there.

[The_Duggler]

Cool..Yeah they look pretty DAMNED expensive

A non pro (run o the mill 128 mb 9600) seems to be 240 Canadian dollars minumum! ugh...not cool. Lol

So i dunno there's this one....

XFX GeForce FX5200 128MB DDR Video Card

Which is kinda cheap..but it might suck ass, so i dunno. Any other ideas if I'm too chintz to fork out the cash for the 9600 :laugh: ?

[Wiggo]

I'd much prefer a GF4 Ti4200 (DX8) over a FX5200 as it'll slaughter that DX9 card.

[The_Duggler]

hmm .... K

So lets see

Assuming I got either a 9600 or a G4 TI 4200 / 4400


With a 733 hz P3 and about 600 some odd ram, would Battlefield 1942 and Desert Combat play properly?

Yeah im sort of wondering whether i could clock up the bus speed on the CPU considering that its't the old architecture before intel implimented the multiplier lock and stuff..dunno, might be able to squeeze a few exrtra mhz out of her, as long as it will just run that damn war game!

So much fun on LAN i tell ya! (well it would be if it weren't so freakin breaky and laggy on his end)

[Wiggo]

Either will be a lot better for those games than the FX5200 but Intel implemented the multiplier lock back with the original Pentiums so that isn't an option even with an old PIII though the mobo may let ya up the FSB unless its a mobo made by Intel.

[SearanoX]

Hmm, your system's kind of old, and if you were to buy a new card, you'd see some difference, but certainly not the huge difference, as your other hardware would limit your GPU's performance. I would go with a 9200 Pro at the moment. It's pretty cheap, it gives better performance than, say, a GeForce 4, and it has DX9 support, but you're going to need to turn down the detail levels a bit to get stuff to go really smooth, especially on later games.

You could also go with something bigger, but it'll cost you more. I'm really only recommending it because it's in your price range, offers decent performance, and it's slow enough that your other hardware wouldn't limit it a whole lot.

Still, though, you'd do much better to get a full upgrade for your computer sometime, because next year, it won't be able to handle the new games coming out.

[Dyck15]

Heres what I would do:

Go to best buy, pick out some nice DVD or CD you want, spend your $30 there.

Go to a local mom&pop store and find a Ti4200. Grab that. I like the 9200 but the Ti4200 should perform better.

The reason is, unless its a sale, best buy and future shop usually charge an arm and a leg for thier PC Components. So that $30 gift card may only make up for thier over charging. The good thing is, they always have huge sales, a lot of the time its under markup. So if you can wait for one of those, go with it.:2cents:

[The_Duggler]

Well. ..Got the 9200 128 mb card. Installed fine. Small, but in most places noticeable increase in frame rate over the G4 Mx 420.

Now i KNOW that the 9200 should be performing a HELL of a lot better than it is, but my goddamn P3 733 mhz piece of crap processor and mobo are holding me back.

I need to know. What should i be looking for in terms of the CHEAPEST Pentium 4 processor (Intel preferred cus i dont know jack about AMDs) and i think i'll get another Asus P4s800 mobo, cus they are good and cheap and i've already got one on my other comp.


Oh, and additionally......I'm gonna buy a fan for this sucker, cus it only seems to come with a built in HS. However....seems to be clocked at 250/200 in stock i believe, how far can i push this before i will red line? Any other 9200 users out there who can tip me off?!

[maximus7001]

I am surprised you did not find something at a boxing day sale.

seems to be clocked at 250/200

That would be why it is so slow. They are the same speed as an oem(generic) r9000. It's the pro model that has the 275/275 speeds. Here is an example. I have tested the pro and non pro in the same machine(1ghz duron, 512 mb ram).
3dmark 2001:
r9000 128mb, score 3785(lame)
r9000 pro 64mb, score 6006(pretty good for $95)

That's why the r9000pro got a bad rap, everyone did not understand the difference between the non pro and pro.
The 9200 is extremely hard to find in pro since ati themselves never made one, only partners. The 9200 also has an se version that is even worse. 8x agp also means nothing(the only real difference between the 9000 and 9200 series)

r9000pro 64mb has active cooling and is available at a few places in Winnipeg for $95cdn. It is way better and cheaper than the 9200($140 cdn for real ati)

[SearanoX]

Pentium 4 processors aren't hugely expensive anymore. You may be able to find a 1.8-2.0 GHz for around $150 - 200 if you look around for it. You should see a bigger increase in speed. Trust me, the 9200 is a big difference over the MX, and it's the processor that's bottlenecking you. You might want to go out and find a Pro version if possible, but they're hard to find. Online shops may be your only option.

As for overclocking, if you have good airflow, you can probably get it up a good 5-10% with the default cooling, but a new fan might let you get up to 15-20% faster, which will show a big increase, but will probably shorten the card's life span even more than a normal overclock.