Need good low profile card

[klamerus]

I have a couple of Dell 4600C systems for my kids. They don't have much room in their rooms.

These are "slightly" upgradable. They have an AGP slot and I have replaced their original graphics cards with a pair of ChainTech FX 5200 cards. The slot is only half-height (low profile). This includes both the card space and the tab.

I'm looking for something better. I got these cards because they support DirectX 9.x (so I had to), but I have to think there's something better/faster.

Can anyone recommend a better faster card than these?

 

[SnOop005]

I'm selling my retail leadtek Geforce 4 Ti-4400 for 75 shipped if your interested
and yes, its a lot faster than the 5200 and even the 5600.

Thanks

 

[someone16]

Lol, snoop, you sure that card is low profile?

As for what card you can get, highest performace low profile card would be ATI 9600. In some jap sites, however, i've seen low profile 9600XT's.

 

[klah]

I've only seem the most extreme low-end cards released in that form factor; 9200se, 9600se, 5700le(slower than 5200), 5200, x300se, gf4-mx, etc.

The only real option I see is to buy a new case for $30, transfer your parts over, and buy the best card you are willing to pay for. Otherwise it seems you are stuck with what you've got.

 

[klamerus]

I'm pretty certain I wouldn't need to upgrade the case (which I don't have space for) becuase even the laptops (like the Alien) have some pretty kicking cards coming along. I just ordered a new T42p for myself and it comes with the ATI FireGL.

A quesiton back to Snoop and someone16 is whether those are both half-height like I need (including the tab). I've seen some in the past (even ordered some) that were half height on the card, but the tab was full size.

 

[klah]

Originally posted by: klamerus
I'm pretty certain I wouldn't need to upgrade the case (which I don't have space for) becuase even the laptops (like the Alien) have some pretty kicking cards coming along. I just ordered a new T42p for myself and it comes with the ATI FireGL.

A quesiton back to Snoop and someone16 is whether those are both half-height like I need (including the tab). I've seen some in the past (even ordered some) that were half height on the card, but the tab was full size.

The FireGL is the equivalent of a desktop 9600. It is integrated into the laptop's motherboard. There is not a market for high-end half-height AGP cards, and none exist beyond what I listed above.

 

[Peter]

Among other reasons, that's because you can't have RAM chips above the main GPU, because there's no room on the LP card. Hence, you can only make 64-bit bus cards in LE form factor. That in turn makes using high-clocked GPUs rather pointless.

 

[klamerus]

So, would the 9600 SE be better than the card I've got. I see they are low-profile?

Maybe someone knows of a web site that has benchmarks of the various core chips (if not the individual manufacturer's cards).

I can see the point on the memory. There's not much room for memory on a half height card, but I would think that 128 MB would be enough. I'm just looking for a faster pipeline than the FX5200 my kids currently have.

 

[klamerus]

Also, forgot to ask...

...what's the difference between a 9600, a 9600 se, and a 9600 xt (mentioned above)?

 

[klamerus]

Klah,

Would you be able to put the chipsets you mention in order of lowest to highest performance?