Best PCI Video Card

[nadine]

:t HI:I was just Wondering what is the best PCI Video Card out there
BTW:I know AGP are Better But there is no AGP Slot Into my motherboard
PS: PCI Video Card Required 4 Gaming
many thanks in advance

[Seanb2uk]

I'd Go With a XFX or Maddog FX5200 128mb. If u can't find them any FX5200 will do. If u have to get PCI. I know how u feel my PC has no AGP but i managed to get my dad to take it. and im now building a computer.

Also whateva games u wanna play u can prob play about middle detail about about 800X600 Resolution but it shudnt be too bad.

Max Payne 2 Works very well.
Need For Speed Underground shud be good.

[nadine]

:t HI:What about "Halo" & "Unreal Tournament"
cheers de Nadine

[Seanb2uk]

heya :t

Yeh Unreal Tournament 2003. Shud be easy. Dunno about 2004. Depends on the rest of yur computer which i forgot to ask?

What specs do you have?

What CPU Type? AMD or Intel?
How much MB of Ram? and what PC Speed?
Harddrive shudn't make too much difference.

Halo u need a pretty gud comp to play but i recon u'll be fine wiv it.

[CrazyCrusher]

yep I would 2nd that card or ATI, my buddy has FX5200 PCI and he can run UT2003 1024768 pretty easy, with some details set to low,

Halo you may have some problems even with my computer running 3.2 P4 and TI4600 I have some problems with it, but you should be ok running most games and they should look pretty good.:t

[sm8000]

See if you can find a PCI version of the Radeon 9100. I think Visiontek made them.

[CrazyCrusher]

Originally posted by sm8000
See if you can find a PCI version of the Radeon 9100. I think Visiontek made them.

ahh thats the one I was thinking about, I couldnt for the life of me remember the name of it, I have to send that name to someone now :)

[bob05]

The best one really is the FX 5200 PCI. I play Halo on a 1.2 ghz Celeron with a FX 5200 PCI and it is smooth (with some Medium and some High Details, no low). Unreal 2004 uses the 2003 engine, so it wouldn't be too much different performance wise. :t

[stix_kua]

Originally posted by Seanb2uk
heya :t

Yeh Unreal Tournament 2003. Shud be easy. Dunno about 2004. Depends on the rest of yur computer which i forgot to ask?

What specs do you have?

What CPU Type? AMD or Intel?
How much MB of Ram? and what PC Speed?
Harddrive shudn't make too much difference.

Halo u need a pretty gud comp to play but i recon u'll be fine wiv it.

CPU Manufacturer does not matter...

[Metallica rules]

yeah, im having the exact same problem. My computer doesnt have n AGP slot so the best i can find is the FX 5200 PCI. The only game i really want to play on it is Counter Strike 1.6. Doesn anyone know if it is compatible or not?:confused:

[iceblue]

Yes, it's compatible.

[megaspazz]

yup- that card should be more than enough to run
c/s.

btw: Welcome to SysOpt :t

--'spazz

[Metallica rules]

what i meant for compatibility, is Is it gonna work well without any lag and anything?

Because my CS has been freezing every round once or more, and when it unfreezes im usually dead. Will it fix it or not. IF anyone knows, please help THNX

[iceblue]

It will work well without lag or anything. :p

In fact, my Gf4MX440 runs it at 99+ FPS. :t

[Crashman]

Radeon 9100, as mentioned before.

[Metallica rules]

What do you mean by Radeon 9100?
Is it better than the geforce FX5200?

[sm8000]

If he's recommending it, then he probably thinks so. I do too. They're as low as $53 on pricewatch.com :)

[Metallica rules]

where can i find a radeon 9100? what is the price, and what are its stats?
o yeah, and is it PCI compatible?

[sm8000]

http://www.pricewatch.com/

Yes, there's a PCI version. Specs/benchmarks available on Google.

[bob05]

Originally posted by sm8000
http://www.pricewatch.com/

Yes, there's a PCI version. Specs/benchmarks available on Google.

The only versions out now are the smaller 64 meg versions, which will hamper performance. I recommend this Geforce FX 5200 128 meg PCI (http://www.gameve.com/gve/store/productdetails.aspx?sku=VC-APOL-0012). This uses the 128 bit memory, and has 128 megs of ram. The 9100 is good too, but that 64 megs is kind of small. :t

[Rugor]

The Radeon 9100 is a rebadged 8500. When you're dealing with PCI cards your framebuffer size is less important than for AGP cards because you're likely to be running 800x600 or 1024x768 anyway so 64MB will probably be fine. The very large framebuffers only really come into their own when you're using AA and AF with high resolutions, neither of which you're likely to be doing much of with a PCI-based video card.

If you're comparing the FX5200 to the R9100 you'll see the FX has a better feature set, but less raw performance. Without going into the arguments of how much DX9 ability an FX5200 has, the fact remains it can run floating point shaders where the R9100 can't. However, it's a 2 pipe card with no bandwidth compression features where the 9100 has four pipes and significant bandwidth compression features.

Both of these are budget solutions-- and your choice depends a lot on your planned uses-- but the 9100 is going to generally outperform the 5200.

[iceblue]

Originally posted by Rugor
The Radeon 9100 is a rebadged 8500. When you're dealing with PCI cards your framebuffer size is less important than for AGP cards because you're likely to be running 800x600 or 1024x768 anyway so 64MB will probably be fine. The very large framebuffers only really come into their own when you're using AA and AF with high resolutions, neither of which you're likely to be doing much of with a PCI-based video card.

If you're comparing the FX5200 to the R9100 you'll see the FX has a better feature set, but less raw performance. Without going into the arguments of how much DX9 ability an FX5200 has, the fact remains it can run floating point shaders where the R9100 can't. However, it's a 2 pipe card with no bandwidth compression features where the 9100 has four pipes and significant bandwidth compression features.

Both of these are budget solutions-- and your choice depends a lot on your planned uses-- but the 9100 is going to generally outperform the 5200.
2 pipe? The link he posted lists 4 pipelines.

[Rugor]

That's because the FX architecture plays rather fast and loose with the term "pipelines."

An FX5200 is said to be able to operate as either a 4x1 or 2x2 configuration card, where the 9100 is a 4x2 card. However, there are a number of tests that have been done (especially by Digit-Life) which indicate that for all practical purposes the FX5200 operates in 2x2 mode 90+% of the time. So regardless of what has been officially claimed I consider it a 2 pipe card.