BUYING A PCI CARD, HELP ME CHOOSE

[deltree]

i have researched all over the web and i have come across only 2 pci cards worth mentioning, i will not be playing games at mind blowing resolutions, in other words nothing above 800*600, and i dont want to upgrade for at least one more year.
my pc.
p3 700. 128 mb ram
geforce 2 mx200 pci.
i think thats enuff for now.

i have 2 cards in mind

1: http://www.mdmm.com/products/graphics/fx5200pci.asp
2: http://www.bfgtech.com/5200_256.html


Pls dont recomend 9100 as its is a bit outdated, doesnt run 3dmark03 even properly. it has been proved it has sucky scores on utkdemo, becuz it doesnt utilize dx9. but my question here is will the 256mb asylum be more beneficial on my system or the mad dog version, becuz i have very low amounts of system memory anyways.all i am asking is will it prove to be a beneficial factor.On the other hand can anyone of u pls provide me links to some benchmarks on the bfg asylum, becuz i have yet to see its benchmarks , i have already come across the mad dog's benchmarks.
my last question will they run hl2 , on my system specs.remember id be on lowest grafix settings all the time.

 

[OinkBoink]

the first card.......

 

[dguy6789]

listen. these cards ARE too slow to use dx9. and either of them will be slower then a 9100 pci or even a 9000 pci in ANYTHING.

if your using pci, you shouldnt even be looking for 3dmark scores, and with a cpu that slow, you would be better off staying with your geforce 2 mx. you wont see much of an improvement at all. your cpu is bottlenecking the gf2, let alone something higher.

 

[dshodson]

interesting that u dont like the ati 9100 card since every time i see this discussion, that seems to be the winner for the money(of course they are hard to find at this point). I also have to question what OS are you running since 128 is extremely low for 2k and XP in particular with gaming not to mention HL2. Im betting that a 9100 and more memory (same price as the cards u are looking at) would do better although i think you are going to be extremely hard pressed with a 700mhz system. I can appreciate not wanting to spend the money necessary to get a new system but i really feel u will be unsatisfied even at low settings if u want to play newer games.

Sorry if this isnt helpful

D

 

[MichaelZ]

Pls dont recomend 9100 as its is a bit outdated, doesnt run 3dmark03 even properly. it has been proved it has sucky scores on utkdemo, becuz it doesnt utilize dx9

that's just misinformed but i'll pretend i didn't hear that and answer your question. (it's late)

get the 1st one...

 

[Mloot]

1st one. Although I still have to go with the 9100 recommendation.

 

[Steve]

9100, 9000, 9200, 7500, All In Wonder VE.

 

[The Green Bean]

stick with the GF2 and get more ram

 

[Matthias99]

Pls dont recomend 9100 as its is a bit outdated, doesnt run 3dmark03 even properly. it has been proved it has sucky scores on utkdemo, becuz it doesnt utilize dx9.

As has been pointed out, this is an incredibly dumb comment. The 9100 is (unless you can find an FX5600) the best PCI graphics card you can get. The FX5200 is not really all that much faster than a GF2MX, especially ones with 64-bit memory.

 

[jessieqwert]

I have just used the second one (the asylum SE) and it was great for BF1942: DC
It also ran flawlessly in Windows XP.
I'd recommend only if you can get it for less than $60

 

[atlr]

I don't think the extra memory on the BFG will do you much good. An extra DIMM for your motherboard would help out though.

I bought the Maddog one for a 800MHz system. I tried a 9100 and it wouldn't boot with the MB I have (Shuttle SV25). I have been satisfied with the performance of the Maddog Conquerer playing games like No One Lives Forever 2.

I think the Conquerer Plus is the highest clocked 5200; 250Mhz core, 250MHz memory (also referred to as 500 MHz effective because it's DDR memory). The BFG card lists a 280 MHz core but does not list the memory clock.

$100-120 for this caliber of card is a bit painful. CompUSA and Microcenter have had rebates on the Conquerer series several times over the past 6 months. One just ended with CompUSA, so I hope you got in on that. Check out these links.

http://fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?catid=18&threadid=319409

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?tabtype=rb&product%5Fcode=305452&pfp=cat3#moreinfo

See if you can add a 256MB or 512MB DIMM to your system. That will help tide you through another year too. That would be about another $40-$60.