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My parents have a computer that has only PCI slots

D

Drizzy

Golden Member
What about best "budget" card available? My parents arent too game intensive but my nephew does like to play warcraft3 type of games on here.. any suggestions on a good bang-for-your-buck card as well? Thanks in advance.
 
The answer is the same as it has been for the last TWO YEARS (try a search!)

RADEON 8500 or GeForce FX 5600 Ultra (if you can find one...)

The GeForce4MX is a cheap, widely-available card as well. It's slower than the other two, however.
 
Did a search.. read a few post.. found mixed answers.. decided to post..
sorry for the INTENSE PAIN those 30 seconds caused you. 🙂
But thanks for the response...
 
So I cant find those 9100 or the 5600Ultra ANYWHERE.. not even on Ebay... What card is the best for the $50 range that is available?
 
A used GeForce 4 Ti4400 or 4600 is probably the best thing to get in very low price ranges.

All that FX 5200 stuff is not really good. Dx9 but not enough power to run any game requiring it and slower when not using DX9 features.
 
Originally posted by: Bateluer
Might be more worth it to buy a cheap s462 board, a sempron, maybe some ram, and an AGP card. 😛
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someof you seem to think we can pull money out of our behind

😉
 
i put fx 5200s in those PCI only dell systems. run about $50 and you get DX9 hardware. not the fastest, but up there with the other PCI cards you can actually purchase still. and you get the latest feature set. since all the PCI cards are within range of each other (slow) you might as well get as much as you can get.
 
Originally posted by: housecat
i put fx 5200s in those PCI only dell systems. run about $50 and you get DX9 hardware. not the fastest, but up there with the other PCI cards you can actually purchase still. and you get the latest feature set. since all the PCI cards are within range of each other (slow) you might as well get as much as you can get.
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Where do you buy those at? the cheapest I can find is at newegg for around $70...
 
Originally posted by: housecat
i put fx 5200s in those PCI only dell systems. run about $50 and you get DX9 hardware. not the fastest, but up there with the other PCI cards you can actually purchase still. and you get the latest feature set. since all the PCI cards are within range of each other (slow) you might as well get as much as you can get.
Click to expand...

The FX5200 is *far* slower than a RADEON 8500/9100 (they're the same card) or a GeForceFX 5600. The 5200U, with 128-bit memory, is not as crippled but still pretty bad. Yeah, it has DX9 (technically), but it's too slow to run any DX9 game.

ouch shipping sucks there! Anyone purchased from these guys before?
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$7 for shipping "sucks"? resellerratings link. Iffy ratings, but these cards are hard to find. PCI-only systems are basically dinosaurs at this point in terms of graphics card upgrades. No new PCI cards have been produced in the last 3 years or so.

Did a search.. read a few post.. found mixed answers.. decided to post..
sorry for the INTENSE PAIN those 30 seconds caused you.
But thanks for the response...
Click to expand...

I haven't seen a different answer than "RADEON 8500/9100 or GeforceFX5600 PCI" in any of the numerous "which PCI video card is the best?" posts. Seriously, there's nothing else to really consider; newer low-end cards like the FX5200 are slower, and the 6200 (who the heck recommended this???) is PCIe, not PCI. Hey, at least you looked. 😛
 
newegg sometimes has refurbs.. i cant really recommend that to a inexperienced user, but if you want to take the jump, go for it.

i try to not spend over $50 on a PCI card and the refurbed 5200s do nicely. i would try to get one with 128bit memory or the 5200 ultra if you go that route though.

the 9100 is a good card as well, but is DX8 and at this performance point I dont see much difference.

in the high end i have liked some of ATI's stuff (9700/9800), but since you wont find a stellar PCI card, buy on driver quality/compatibility (nvidia).

DX9 functions are merely a bonus.. some can actually speed up parts of a game (and you can disable certain taxing DX functions in most games).

but if you play some doom3 or something similar (prob only playable at 640x480, at least my personal PCI 5200 does smoothly at medium quality), you can enable features like "heat haze" that are not available on DX8 cards.

just an example. someday, even your OS will use DX9 (and better) functions. i know the next windows will use the next version of DX to accelerate its 3D interface.

the fact you cant find a $50 5200 might just be bad luck right now. I was going to order a dell 2001FP and now the price went from $599 to $799 on dell's site! argh!
 
Originally posted by: Drizzy
What about best "budget" card available? My parents arent too game intensive but my nephew does like to play warcraft3 type of games on here.. any suggestions on a good bang-for-your-buck card as well? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Check this THREAD in Hot Deals on PCI gfx cards

Fern
 
Originally posted by: Drizzy
Originally posted by: Bucksnort
I beg to differ, the fastest pci card is the radeon 9100 pro which is faster than the 9200 btw.
9100 pro
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Thanks for the link... This will probably be the card I'll buy.
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Good choice... first card I thought of when I thought PCI and performance.. the ATI 9100 cards are great budget cards.
 
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