Which is better for my piecemeal build?

[episodic]

Hi, I'm building a system from parts laying around the house for my nephew who is 10.

Here is my only (slight) dilemna. . .

I have 2 graphics cards, and am not sure which would be better due to strengths and weaknesses of each. . .

One is a PCI RADEON 9100 Xtasy w/128 DDR memory (served me well with a propriety no agp slot system I had) - handled unreal tournament 2003 just fine . . .

The other is a Nvidia Geforce GTS Ulra AGP card 32 megs . . . I've never actually used this card, tested it once to see if it worked, been keeping it for a special occasion. I understand these were pretty good cards in thier day.

I wasn't sure if the AGP port with the older card would trump the PCI slot with a newer card or not, and there are not alot of benchmarks that directly compare this sort of thing.

Thanks for your expertise - (Btw he likes to play RTCW and lots of RTS games). . .

The CPU will be an Athlon 850 if that matters . . .

Thanks!!!

 

[McArra]

LOL this is a hard one!! I'd benchmark both and decide

 

[episodic]

Results are confusing:

PCI Radeon 9100 - PCMARK 2001 - 5808
GTS Ultra - PCMARK 2001 - 2909

Same settings for both. . .

Quake III Bench @ 1024x768x32b

80.5 FPS Radeon 9100 PCI
114.2 FPS GTS Ultra


Haha . . .From that which would you guys pick?

 

[Insomniak]

Cave and shell out like $30 for a GeForce 4 MX?

I'd say go for the Raddy-on. Greater onboard memory bandwidth will probably give more love.

 

[modedepe]

Asuming it has a 128 bit bus, got with the 9100. I probably go with it even if it was only 64bit.

Cave and shell out like $30 for a GeForce 4 MX?

What's the point of that? So he can get a crappy card that's slower than the 9100?

 

[episodic]

Cool, it is a 128 bit bus. . .


Built him an old school gaming rig, he should be happy (he was playing on his parent's cele 700 w/ a TNT2 card). . .


His Rig

Athlon 850 running at 900 mhz
256 DDR 2100 Ram
Radeon 9100 128 meg PCI
PC Chips KT266A
Fortron 300w Power supply
20 Gig Maxtor

All of this in a modded drawer painted camoflauge style (wish I had a digicamera)

I'll describe it:
I painted the exterior of an old drawer camoflauge style
I cut out the right size for the motherboard connectors to be exposed on the side for a parallel port and such.
I rigged an on off switch and mounted it in a hole I drilled out the front of the case. Used silicon to secure it. Kept it simple, no reset swith or HD lights.
I mounted a removable backplate from one I begged from a local LUG. I mounted it to the bottom of a drawer (like a dresser drawer).
Had a removable harddrive mount I screwed into the upper rear side of the drawer.
Power supply secured with velcro (haha).
Found a Slot loading cd rom that I mounted vertically next to the harddrive.

saved me the cost of a case since I had everything else, and always wanted to it. . .

 

[otispunkmeyer]

nice hidden in a drawer....i think thats a good idea if u want your pc to blend in....not sure bout cooling tho....my friend is doing something similar at college for a tech project...shes building a computer desk with the computer built in!!!

 

[episodic]

Well it's not going to be shoved into anything. That would be a cool idea though . . .not today though. . ..

 

[modedepe]

Power supply secured with velcro

lol, sounds like an interesting rig. I'd love to see it