Low end PCI card

[exdeath]

I need to upgrade a i810 based 800 Mhz celeron with 256 MB and integrated video and PCI only to be at least *playable* with games like Warcraft 3. For my personal system I only go with the highest end so I have never paid any attention to low end or mainstream video cards. This is for a last minute LAN session addition for someone who has historically only been able to play Starcraft

These are the choices that I can find locally under $100 (need to get ASAP)

GeForce 4 MX 4000 64 MB PCI
GeForce FX 5200 128 MB PCI
Radeon 7500 64 MB PCI
Radeon 9200 (non SE) 128 MB PCI

The question is, will ANY of these cards show any differance over another given the system specs and if so by what margins? I know I can't expect much from a i810 system with PC100, but since these all cost the same I'd like to know which is better and how significantly. I'm betting on having at least real time gameplay

Thanks

Chris

 

[SneakyStuff]

The GeForce FX 5200 PCI will show a great gain over the i810, go for it, and play WC3

 

[VirtualLarry]

Best bet would be a Radeon 9100 PCI 128MB, those are basically relabled 8500s, and are faster than the 9200. But given a choice like that, I'd probably go with the GF FX 5200, if it had 128-bit memory, and active cooling. (Thus being more overclockable than passivly-cooled video cards, like my Radeon 9200 that isn't very overclockable at all.)

The Radeon 7500 isn't too bad in older games either, but any of the other three are newer, and should have higher performance. I'm not really sure what the difference between the GF 4 MX4000 and GF4 MX chipsets are, maybe it's just a GF MX4 with 8x AGP support or something.

 

[exdeath]

Yeah I figured the FX 5200 was the best on that list, but given whats feeding it, will it make a differance over a Radeon 9200 or GF4 MX 4000 or would it just mean the same frame rate and more idle time for the GPU?

 

[SneakyStuff]

Whatever's cheaper, stay away from the mx4000 and the y500 tho.