Budget AGP video card recommendation needed

[chaskuss]

Hi folks,
I've been out of the loop in regards to video cards the past year and a half. I have a friend with an AMD XP1600+, ECS K7S5A machine (running Windows 2000 Pro) He currently has a Gainward GeForce 2 MX400 64 meg video card. He likes to run all the various flight simulator games.
He asked me for a video card recommendation. He's cheap, so forget the > $100 cards. He's looking at a GeForce 4 MX400 card on NewEgg. Is the upgrade from his card to one of the newer versions of the MX400 going to make much difference?
He has 256 megs of PC2100 DDR main memory. What sort of video card upgrade (if any) would be worthwhile in his price catagory?

[iceblue]

A GeForce 4 Ti 4200.

[bob05]

If you can't get a Geforce 4 Ti 4200, a 5200 is a good alternative. :t

[stalkersoftware]

I wouldnt count on that. The GF4mx is pretty much the same as the GF2mx. Wouldnt recomend upgrading to this. They both are pretty much the same. Crapy cards.
fx5200 is good as long as you get the 128bit mem version.

I would serisouly look into one of these cards.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

:t

[JediOfDarkness]

Take it from personal experience, the GeForce FX 5200 is a horrible graphics card. The Ti 4200 would be a good card, as it preforms as well as a GeForce 5600, and for about the same cost as a GeForce 5200.

[Peter M]

Plain Radeon 9600 cards, or 9550, should just so fit the budget. Don't get the "SE" flavors, these have only 64-bit RAM bus width.

Keep an eye on the power supply strength - but said cards are fanless and don't consume much power. After plugging the card, check the BIOS for good voltage readings, particularly the 3.3V rail the AGP card lives on.

[chaskuss]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I've let my buddy know not to bother with the Geforce 4 MX400. I've suggested he check out this thread and decide for himself, which way he wants to go.
Chas:t

[Tech^salvager]

EVGA GeForce FX 5600xt for $98 at zipzoomfly.com