PCI Graphics over Onboard graphics?

[Gkap27]

Would "upgrading" to a Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 or 5500 128 MB (PCI) be much better than my crappy 64mb on board graphics?
I'd be using this for simple gaming with all the graphics options on low. I'd also try to use this on Age of Empires 3.

 

[dandragonrage]

...Your current hardware is?

 

[Assail]

Okay, I have to say, do not go with the FX5200. I have to say that is the most POS card on the market. My Ti4800 blew that card away, the 5200 can't even play Halo. It's a horrible gaming card for any game. Just a heads up

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Any way you look at it the FX5500 is the max u wanna get for PCI unless you plan on playing a game that requires Pixel Shader 3 support. The Pci bus strangles any card you hook up to it with it's pidly sub AGP 1x transfer rates ( like 50% of the bandwidth of AGP 1x ).

To give you a good idea on how bad Pci chokes a video card I bought a a VisionTek X1300 256mb Pci card for a friend in Canada who has a 2.53ghz P4 and 768mb DDR.

At 800x600 without AA or AF thru 1280x1024 with 2x AA and 16x AF on Command And Conquer Renegade he got about 30 - 40 fps. The Pci bus becomes the bottle neck with any video card you plug into it.

If you want the best for the money get the FX5500, if you need Pixel Shader 3 support get a 6200 with 128bit memory but for gods sake try to avoid spending $100 for a Pci card as you'd be better getting a mobo with 6200 onboard and a good CPU by that point.

 

[Gkap27]

O.K. My setup is:
Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz
640 MB Ram
64 MB On Board Graphics 845g Intel Chipset

The FX 5500 would cost around $60 or a little under.
I'm also considering just buying a new motherboard that supports AGP or PCI-E.

 

[A554SS1N]

Well, you could only possibly get an AGP board, as PCI-E wouldn't be supported for that Socket 478 P4, but AGP is a much better interface than standard PCI and allows you to get a much better graphics card for playing games, so it's worth changing the motherboard as well if you can get it cheap enough.

 

[aka1nas]

You can grab an X1300 or Geforce 6200 in PCI. Frankly, the rest of your PC is pretty slow now and a modern high card wouldn't help you much even if you bought a new mobo and kept your CPU and RAM. You're not going to be able to comfortably play any games that require a 7900 or X1900 grade card for a decent experience with just 640MB of RAM.

 

[Gkap27]

This is a pretty old topic, but I did end up getting a PCI fx 5200 128 mb card. I have a friend who wanted it, so i figured if i got it and didn't like it, I could just sell it to him. I used 3dmark01 to benchmark my system before the card. It got a lousy 1621 marks. After installing the new card, my system got a 4914 (still lousy, but better). I was surprised that a card that I got for $40 made my system more than 3x faster. Man that onboard graphics was choking the system. -Just for those nonbelievers lol.

 

[Auric]

The Best PCI cards are HD2400, X1550 and 8500GT but the best bang for the buckaroo is prolly still a 9100 if the later features are not required and you can find one.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Gkap27
This is a pretty old topic, but I did end up getting a PCI fx 5200 128 mb card. I have a friend who wanted it, so i figured if i got it and didn't like it, I could just sell it to him. I used 3dmark01 to benchmark my system before the card. It got a lousy 1621 marks. After installing the new card, my system got a 4914 (still lousy, but better). I was surprised that a card that I got for $40 made my system more than 3x faster. Man that onboard graphics was choking the system. -Just for those nonbelievers lol.

Anything is better than integrated. Incidentally, the PCI 5200 is a faster card than the 5500. I have a PCI 5500, the thing is a joke.

Now you get to save your pennies for a real video card, motherboard, CPU, RAM, and probably power supply.

 

[A554SS1N]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Gkap27
This is a pretty old topic, but I did end up getting a PCI fx 5200 128 mb card. I have a friend who wanted it, so i figured if i got it and didn't like it, I could just sell it to him. I used 3dmark01 to benchmark my system before the card. It got a lousy 1621 marks. After installing the new card, my system got a 4914 (still lousy, but better). I was surprised that a card that I got for $40 made my system more than 3x faster. Man that onboard graphics was choking the system. -Just for those nonbelievers lol.

Anything is better than integrated. Incidentally, the PCI 5200 is a faster card than the 5500. I have a PCI 5500, the thing is a joke.

Now you get to save your pennies for a real video card, motherboard, CPU, RAM, and probably power supply.

5500 is a 5200 with a slightly higher core clock though? :S Unless your 5500 has only 64-bit memory, in which case, it would explain why it's slower.

 

[miker75]

Originally posted by: Auric
The Best PCI cards are HD2400, X1550 and 8500GT but the best bang for the buckaroo is prolly still a 9100 if the later features are not required and you can find one.

Please tell me where you can get a HD2400 in PCI format (note: NOT PCI-E)

 

[Auric]

Dunno but Best Data (Diamond brand) and VisionTek are amongst those who pre-announced 2400 Pro PCI. ah heck is that neither have distinctive model names and basic search results are cluttered with PCI-E.

 

[neothe0ne]

Originally posted by: Dazed and Confused
you'd be better getting a mobo with 6200 onboard

No you wouldn't.

 

[miker75]

This card wouldn't be too bad (based on the X1550)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814103031