Geforce2 MX 200 powerful enough?

[cyuill]

A couple of weeks ago I asked about what video card might be best for my oldish system, which has an ASUS P5A-B (Super 7, AGP) mainboard with an AMD K6-2 500MHz CPU. After taking the responses posted here, and suggestions of sales reps into account, I decided to get a video card based on the Geforce2 MX chipset. The sales rep at the store I bought my card from suggested a Geforce2 MX 200 card. I figured it would be plenty powerful, being a Geforce2-series card. 2-D performance seems to be equal to what I was getting from my Matrox Millenium card. 3-D performance is better than what I was getting from my Canopus Pure 3-D Voodoo 1 card. (I get faster frame rates from the MX 200 at 32-bit and 800x600 than from the Voodoo 1 at 16-bit and 640x480.) I'm wondering, however, if I'm doing myself a disservice by getting this card rather than an "old" MX, or an MX 400. Tests show that these two can provide noticeably-better performance on a 1 GHz CPU than an MX 200. But I know that my system quickly creates bottlenecks, so there might be little or no performance difference when going from one card to another. Should I return the MX 200 card and get an MX or MX 400?

 

[Swanny]

I'd get a MX 400. I don't think it's that much more expensive, and it will do just that much more to ensure that your graphics card isn't the system's main bottleneck.

 

[duke]

If your considering the MX400 then why not consider the GTS or even the Pro. It's not much more for a big difference in performance.

 

[Killrose]

If your a gammer, stay away from the MX 200. Your system is going to be the bottleneck with the MX 400.

 

[JeffDogg1979]

I just picked up a 64mb GTS Pro card for $150 at a show. A PowerColor card, real good stuff. I'm not big on Frames per second, so I have no idea what the performace is(by running 3mark, etc.), but I can run Unreal Tourney max resolution with all details on with no slowdown.

Isn't that the most important thing? If it's doing 45fps instead of 75 fps, I'm not going to notice it.

http://www.powercolor.com.tw/

 

[uknemesis]

I think you'll find that with owning a K6 2 he'll be cpu limited long before the video card has run out of steam.

I guess it all depends on what resolution he will be running software at, a normal mx will be find for upto 800x600. I wouldn't recommend the mx 200 though, it's a very poor quality video card and the mx 400 doesn't perform that much better than a normal mx. If you don't play alot of games then get a geforce 2 mx, a GTS would be wasted with a K6 2.

What about a budget radeon? Great performance and much better image quality. I usually recommend a Kyro 2 but with his cpu I'd have to go with a radeon.

Nemesis

 

[BFG10K]

Any form of the MX isn't really a viable solution for gamers anymore. There are many other cards that spank it in terms of the price/performance ratio. This is especially true of the MX 200 which is severely crippled and has no hope of scaling with faster CPUs.

A Radeon LE is both faster and usually cheaper than a stock MX. Alternatively a GF2 GTS or a Kyro2 offer seriously more horsepower for a few extra dollars.

 

[djspitfire]

I have a Radeon LE with a Duron 650, and I can play games like Quake III at 1024x768 with 32 bit color at 60+ fps.

 

[Rand]

I'd say your definitely better off taking in back and getting a regular MX or the MX400. The MX200 really isnt even any better then a TNT2 Ultra or a V3 3500 in my experience.