PCI video cards which is the best

romtech

Senior member
Jan 19, 2001
224
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i have a p3 800 and no agp slot but want to upgrade my video card so i can play c&c generals.. any ways I can only upgrade to a pci viceo cards.. I have 2 choices

1) radeon 7000 64
2)GeForce4 MX-440SE with tv out

the radeon is cheaper caz it lacks tv out

which card has the better performance and over all whcih card is better. and will the pci bus slow these cards down a lot more then if they where in agp.


thanks

 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
2,999
126
Your second choice is the best but I think the fastest PCI card is the Radeon 9000.
 

Mloot

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2002
3,038
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91
I think the 9100 PCI's will be tops for awhile, prolly even faster than the FX 5200 PCI, whenever it becomes available.
 

Thavian

Junior Member
Apr 16, 2003
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Don't expect much. Generals is an extremely system-intensive game. With just an 800MHz CPU and a PCI video card, you'll have to turn down all the detail settings and the resolution, and even then it might not run very well. To give you some perspective, I have a laptop with 512MB RAM, a 1.8GHz P4 processor and 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 AGP graphics. When running Generals at 800x600 res with minimum detail settings, I barely get acceptable performance--and the graphics look horrid. Now just imagine what your situation would be with 1GHz less processor speed and no AGP.

I would strongly urge you not to waste your money on a PCI graphics card. You'd be better served to hold off for a little while and save up for a system overhaul. You should be able to get a motherboard, Athlon XP processor (at least model 2400+, possibly faster), 512MB of DDR memory, and Radeon 9x00 series AGP video card for under $300 total. Check www.pricewatch.com for the lowest prices.