Need help determining what vid card to get !!!

[Mem]

It does say though "+5V and +3.3V combined output: 230Watts max." .... is that something I have to worry about?

That`s fine, infact above average for 350w PSU,the 300w model will work fine in your system as well, but price difference between them is small & as I said the 350w will have a longer life span hardware wise which should serve you well and allow quite a few upgrades.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

YAEOVCUT.

Yet Another Extreme Overkill Video Card Upgrade Thread.

You should have saved the money and gone with something on the magnitude of a gF4MX. Or better yet, gotten a new AMD/nForce2 IGP combination.

- M4H

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: JasonStixBuckley
Hey gang. Thanks for all your help.

Getting a new PC just isn't an option for me at this time due to where my money is tied up.

I spent hours last night tryng to figure why the GForce FX 5200 AGP 128MG DDR wouldn't work... then I found it. It requires a power supply of at least 250W to 300W ... my PC only has a 200W one. So, I am off to buy a new power supply today.

I have checked a bit, and I can get a 350W one for around $60 at a local Best Buy, so that is what I will probably do. Anything I need to know about power supplies? I assume if it says it works with Pentiums it should work with mine.

You do realise of course that for $106 more than you've already spent (and only $66 more than you budgeted), you could have grabbed an ASUS A7N8X Motherboard ($117), an Athlon XP 1700+ ($63 retail, $45 OEM), and a decent Enermax Power Supply ($46), and 256MB Corsair PC-2100 DDR RAM ($40), right? You mentioned that upgrading your whole system was out of your budget, but those are some damned good parts for $70 more than you targeted to spend, and would likely give you a much larger FPS boost than a video card upgrade would. You could probably knock $40 off the price of the motherboard to downgrade it to an A7N-266 and get a GF2Ultra for that or less in addition to what's there, and you said you'd budgeted $200 for the card anyway. That's all the higher-quality name-brand stuff that you probably wouldn't buy if you were doing things on the cheap anyways, so it kind of makes me wonder.

The guys who said there isn't much point to a card upgrade were right, and while it's all well and good that he asked (paraphrasing) "What can I throw on this system, the card is frying", it still begs the question, if you are willing to spend $200 on a graphics card, why not spend $270 on a total machine upgrade, and turn out with a much better setup than you previously had? It'll be a hell of an improvement anyway over the 600Mhz PIII/TNT2 you had before.

This is not a flame in any way, I'm just curious.

 

[JasonStixBuckley]

chsh1ca - didn't take it as a flame. I am still pretty new to the internal workings of these things, so what you mentioned is something I am going to look forward to doing in the future.

This is what I HAD to do ...

Well, the tech person at Gateway (where I got my PC from) told me my motherboard had a 2.o compliant AGP slot. Today I found out that was bunk info, and that it is only 1.0 ... grrrr. So, and I know you all are going to cringe at this, I got the same FX 5200 card, but PCI. My only other option for a quick fix here was to go with a GeForce2 MX 400 64 MG card ... I REALLY need to upgrade this motherboard!!

So, it isn't the best, but it is a quick fix within the budget I have right now. Later this year once some of my investments roll back in, I will build a new machine specifically for gaming, and turn this thing into a web-surfing only machine.

I appreciate all the help you all have given me. I have been on a few forums, and rather than people helping, they argue about which is better ... just like car guys do with the Chevy vs Ford deal. You all helped me out without the BS, and I appreciate that. When I look to piece together a new machine, these forums are where I will go!!

Thanks again!