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card upgrade on an old tub?
I'm mulling this over and thought I'd toss it out for input from persons more experienced than myself. I have an old Dimension XP 500 that I have upgraded quite a bit:
processor 500 > Powerleap 1200
vid card currently G4 Ti 4200 64mb
system memory 512 mb
HD WD 80 gig 8mb buffer
Santa Cruz sound card
I happened to notice that the Chaintech Geforece FX 5500 with 256 mb can now be had for less than $70. I'm tempted. Obviously, even though the card is far from top of the line currently, it would still be bottlenecked by the rest of my system. However, I can't help but think that the newer technology plus 4x the memory would still make a noticable difference. I don't intend to try the new "system hog" games like Doom or Half Life, just get better performance on the lessor games. Input?
- Take a look at this website
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-02.html
In 3dmark 2003, your old card 4200 is better than the current 5200. The 5500 is like a faster 5200, the 5700 will be a step up. Your computer is like mine. (see below) I put in a 5900se/xt, which I like, but know it's bottlenecked in Flight Simulator by my PC's limits. My opinion, the 5700 would be an improvement, the 5500 only slightly over what you have now. Happy Thanksgiving. - Your ti 4200 will probably outperform your computer. The main thing the newer cards will do is improve the image quality somewhat. You can tweak your settings for maximum performance, this will degrade the image but will give you better speeds. The ti 4200 really performs with AF and AA turned off. Also the older drivers perform better with the GeForce 4 cards. The 43.45 have worked best for my ti 4200s. You can find tweaking tips and tweaked drivers at these site.
kclazaroux
10 Posts
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Posted November 25th, 2004 16:00