low segment cards??

[aweizd]

Hi,

I have a PIII system with a matrox g200 16MB card, and i want to geta bit new graphicscard for it and i'm not sure which one i should chose. I'm looking for something in the GeFroce 4 MX440 class or maybe GF3 or GF2. In another post i saw that MX cards aren't a good idea, why's that? so what would you suggest??

thx in advance
Luke

 

[MichaelZ]

how fast is your P3? if only around 500 - 700MHz then getting a GF4 Ti is a bit of a waste as your CPU really isn't able to get the most out of your card.

maybe try a GF3 Ti200/500 or a R9100 / 8500 LE. they are well suited to your system and at least you're getting the most out of it. infact, if you're not really a huge gamer a GF4 MX or GF2 GTS or Ultra will be sufficient. Geforce 4 MX is basically a slighty souped up version of GF2 GTS.

 

[Jeff7181]

MX cards don't have hardware Direct X support... a Ti4200 with 64 MB of RAM would do wonders in that computer. It's not really a waste because any game he can find won't be limited by the video card... in his case, AA and AF may be free since the CPU is what would hold it back. You can get 64 MB Ti4200's for less than $75 if you look around enough... it would be pretty stupid to buy a GeForce3 for $60 or 70, when you can step up to a Ti4200 for just a few bucks more.

 

[modedepe]

A gf3 or radeon 8500 would probably be the choice, but it does depend on exactly how fast that p3 is.

 

[aweizd]

its a p3 700. well i guess i might look into a gf4 ti 4200. my cpu might not be the best, but i'm thinking of an upgrade maybe next year.

 

[Lonyo]

If you're not going to upgrade the graphicsa card when you upgrade the rest of the system, looking at a 9600Pro might not be a bad idea, if your motherboard will support it, since then when you do upgrade you'll have a fairly nice DX9 supporting card.
If you're going to upgrade the graphics card along with the rest of the system, a Ti 4200 or 8500/9100 should do fine.

 

[aweizd]

the system upgrade might be in at least a year or maybe later and i could use a better video card right now. so i'm still thinking somewhere between GF3 ti 200 and GF4 ti 4200. if i'll be upgrading i won't upgrade all of it, but maybe only cpu and mobo, so i want to have a decent videocard for it as well.

 

[Blastman]

128MB 9100/8500LE?s are very nice budget cards and run about $70.

 

[modedepe]

If the upgrade won't be for another year or more, just buy a card for now. In a year we'll have pci express video cards and mobos on the market, so you'll probably buy a new video card then anyways.

 

[JammingJay]

If you're lucky enough that has a CompUSA that still has a Visiontek Radeon 9100, then by all means pick it up. Price will be $49.99 - $20MIR. You won't find a better price/performance for a card @ this time especially for the lower end market.