What is the best cheap video card I can get for a p3 1000 system?

mellondust

Senior member
Nov 20, 2001
562
0
0
I have been out of the video card market for a while and I have an old system that I cheaply upgraded from a p3 733 to a p3 1000. I also have an old box I am going to put the p3 733 in which currently has a 3dfx voodoo banshee. I want to network these and do some old school gaming particularly counterstrike. I want to get rid of the banshee and get another video card that could go in either system.

What should I get? My current card a ti4200 does fine, and I wouldn't mind getting another one of those, but is there something out there that is as good or better for cheap. Ti4200's seem to run around $30 or so on ebay, but I think I want a new card itf there is one that fits my criteria for the same price or a little more.

All suggestions would be appreciated.
 

imported_Kiwi

Golden Member
Jul 17, 2004
1,375
0
0
You have set such a low dollar figure that there is nothing REALLY as fast as a Ti-4200 in it, still new. For $10 more, you can get a generic Radeon 9600, new, from a variety of sources, including eBay "Buy it Now". Running at roughly the same speed as the Ti-4200, but possessing more modern Shader and Dx9 capabilities that a Ti-4200 lacks, you can find some 64 Bit Geforce 6200 cards that might work for you (if your MB supports AGP2, 4X).

Newegg has an eVga 6200 right now with a $10 rebate going, so it's $49. There are some FX 5600 Ultra cards selling on eBay, still new, but generic/ white box, usually available for bids around $45, plus $8-10 shipping. That's about Radeon 9600 speed for Dx8, not for Dx9.

(Edited in light of Elopes' comment, and I really knew it was Shader 2 that 4200's lacked, and Radeon 9500 Pros and upward did have, but since I referred to 6200's in the same paragraph, maybe I needed more than a period between sentences referring to the 9600 first, and then changing subjects to the 6200.)


:cool:
 

PhlashFoto

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
3,892
16
81
Kiwi, the ATI 9x00 series do not support SM 3. That was added to DX 9.0c. The ATI card support up to DX 9.0b at the most. I might agree with the 6200 or the 4200.
 

duragezic

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,234
4
81
SM3 is the very last of your concerns.

9600 is my recommendation. Find a used regular or Pro, should be under $50. I was selling my 9800Pro for $75. Or a 6200 possibly. My friend had a slightly faster system with a 4200 and it couldn't run hardly anything at more than 20fps. He put in a regular 6600 and the difference was huge for games like CS 1.6. So I'd try and aim for 9600 or faster, and used they will be under $50.
 

mooncancook

Platinum Member
May 28, 2003
2,874
50
91
I used to run my P3 with a Geforce 2 GTS and later upgraded to 9500Pro. I would suggest getting an used radeon anywhere between 9500Pro and 9800Pro, depending on price you found. It will give you a lot more performance and DX9 support compared to a geForce 4.
 

Maximilian

Lifer
Feb 8, 2004
12,604
15
81
Geforce 4 Ti4400, anything more than that and the PIII will most likely be bottlenecked. Dont underestimate the power of geforce 4! They are really good cards, even to this day they can still manage to play semi-modern games on low settings. Just get another one of these.