PCI video cards

[Sestar]

I am aquiring a motherboard that may be without AGP, I am curious as to what the top of the lines PCI vid cards are?

 

[Rand]

<< I am aquiring a motherboard that may be without AGP, I am curious as to what the top of the lines PCI vid cards are? >>



The old V5 5500 in PCI is still far an away the fastest PCI graphics card available for gaming performance.
ATi has PCI Radeon SDR cards available, and nVidia has GF2 MX's available in PCI... but unfortunately both rely quite heavily upon AGP's advanced feature set and so will take a pretty hefty performance hit by utilizing PCI.

Of course this is assuming your judging "top of the line" as a fast gaming card. Depending upon your requirements another card may be far more suitable if your not a gamer.

 

[Sestar]

Where about do these cards benchmark? what do they cost?

 

[Parrotheader]

<< Where about do these cards benchmark? what do they cost? >>

Just do a little research on review sites like this, Tom's, ixbit, etc. That's what I did after posting a question and found an answer within an hour. The only problem is that most sites don't tend to review many PCI cards, just the latest higher-end stuff. Most of the PCI card reviews are farirly old though.

 

[Rand]

<< Where about do these cards benchmark? what do they cost? >>



The PCI Radeon SDR and the PCI GF2 MX400 perform roughly equal to the AGP GF2 MX200 which is slightly faster then a TNT2 Ultra/V3 3000.
The PCI V5 5500 performs a few frames slower then it's AGP counterpart, so it's slight below a GF2 GTS in performance.

As for cost... well PCI V5's are a rarety these days as their not produced any more, and ast they are far and away the fastest PCI cards available they tend to be bought up pretty quickly whenever they appear.
Your looking at around $150 to buy one new... though you could check EBay, or any number of sales forums including AnandTech's own and likely find a PCI V5 for under a $100.

PCI GF2 MX's and PCI Radeon's are under $80.

 

[chizow]

I just upgraded my V5 PCI (actually still using it as a 2nd card) and it runs on par with the GF2 MX AGP. Its lower in some games at 16-bit, but not by much. Also, you can use 2x FSAA without as much performance hit as most cards if you have a fast CPU, as this card wasn't designed to give blazing fast FPS with any CPU. I was getting ~140fps at 1024x16, ~120fps at 1024x32, ~110fps at 1024x16 with 2x FSAA in Q3. Still by far the best FSAA I've seen, and it ran every game I threw at it with very good performance (anything over 60fps is fine IMO).

Finding one is the hard part. These cards are still in high demand for people such as yourself that don't have an AGP slot, and those who do have one usually won't part with it while they own their current system. The AGP version is much easier to come across b/c of people upgrading to GF3's and Radeon 8500's. Your best bet would be to find one on Ebay, as resellers and retailers liquidated their stock shortly after 3dfx went under. I got mine on Ebay when they weren't in such high demand in June for $100 bucks...I think the going price for one now is ~$135. Still an excellent card, and I still use it for excellent 2D as well as awesome FSAA on some of my older games (D2 looks awesome with 4xFSAA even though I don't play it as much as I used to). I would check the FS/FT forum and see if you can't get lucky and find someone willing to sell it for cheap. Good luck.

Chiz

 

[Parrotheader]

Rand,

Where are you finding MX and Radeon PCI cards for around $80 or less? I was only able to find one Radeon SDR PCI card earlier for $79 (from my earlier thread.) I didn't know where to begin to look with MX cards since there are so many different manufacturers.

 

[FrustratedUser]

I am running a GF 2MX 32Mb SDR PCI on my cellery 500 and W2K.
It is not bad at all. The PCI interface starts to get 'noticed' when going to 1024*768@32 in games.
Just for comparison the 3DMark2000 score with this system is ~2800 --> playing at 800*600 is fine.
I am using the 12.90 drivers and overclocking the memory to ~190MHz makes a few fps difference.
2D quality is fine. A lot better than the built-in i810.

many people will say the V5 is the best and that is probably true but I got this because 3dfx is out of business.
As for ATi I can't say how they are.

 

[ChrisADuffy]

VISIONTEK GEFORCE2 MX400 64MB PCI SDRAM (Retail) Detail Specs (NO STOCK - Estimate arrival on 1/2/02) $95.35

Detail specs of the card. It is sold at multiwave!

 

[oldfart]

Go to Ubid.com. Go to the PCI video card section. They have new VisionTek MX400 PCI cards. The auctions usually close around $65 or so.

 

[QwaarJet]

The Radeon PCI card is nice. I've put them in my little sister and cousin's computers. Quake ran nicely as did UT, various racing games, etc. You notice the hit when you start going into higher resolutions though...

 

[Sestar]

But if I say play my games at 800x600x16(I know, I know, UNCOUTH!) no worries for a while right?

 

[chizow]

If you play at that resolution you should go with a V5. You'll get fps as good as either the Radeon or GF2 MX and also be able to run 2x FSAA. At that resolution and color depth, the card will have processing power to spare and enabling FSAA will put a minimal hit to your frames at that resolution with a decent processor.

Chiz

 

[trikster2]

FYI

Radeon 32MB PCI Retail box will be $59 AR starting sunday at compusa.

It's probably the most bang for the buck for a PCI video card and OK for a casual gamer that spends most of his time in 800x600.

(don't have the card but have been researching it as I have a i810 system).

 

[Engineer]

Also,

You can get the Radeon PCI for $49.99 after rebate at Office Depot when you use the 20% off coupon (floating around) along with the $30.00 MIR.

$99.99 - $20.00 (from coupon) - $30.00 MIR = $49.99 + tax (pick up in store or shipped)...



And just maybe if you could get OD Online to price match CompUSA tomorrow, you could possibly get it for $39.99 + tax after MIR....just a thought

 

[Dark4ng3l]

<< But if I say play my games at 800x600x16(I know, I know, UNCOUTH!) no worries for a while right? >>



well you probably wont be playing doom3 or starwars galaxies