Friend stuck, no AGP slot, best PCI card?

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CastleBravo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 2, 2004
Messages
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My friend has a system with the following specs from Dell:

P4 2.0
512 MB PC 2100 RAM
Intel integrated graphics crap thing
NO AGP slot (!)

I actually looked inside the thing, those Dell bastards had a motherboard with a little white outline where the AGP slot should have been! Cheap f'ers. Unfortunately, buying a new motherboard or just junking the whole system aren't options.

So the question is, what is the best PCI graphics card available? He'd at least like a shot at playing Doom 3 decently at low settings. I've really got no idea, the best I've found on Newegg seem to be ATI 9200 series cards.
 
Boozer said:
i think it'd still be too slow.
Click to expand...

I'm not real optimistic myself, but I want to at least give it a shot. I was able to get a P4 1.5 with 512 MB of PC133 to run Doom 3 decently (not great, but playable) at 640x480 Medium detail on a Radeon 9200. With an old Sapphire 9600 Pro it was downright nice at 800x600. Of course, those were cards running at AGP 4x. So with a faster processor and better RAM, I'm hoping that a PCI card might not totally gimp a P4 2.0 with faster RAM, or at least be better than the Intel integrated turd graphics.
 
I don't think that any PCI solution will be fast enough to run DOOM3. It looks like an ATI 9200 or a Nvidia 5200 are your only options. I do think that there were a few PCI 5700 cards made, but i don't know how much better it would be over a 9200.
 
your best bet for playing doom 3 on that machine would probably be a BFG Geforce FX 5500 OC. You can pick one up at Best Buy for ~$100. It's better than the 9200 overall, and probably has an edge in doom 3, granted at 640x480.
 
UltimateMan said:
your best bet for playing doom 3 on that machine would probably be a BFG Geforce FX 5500 OC. You can pick one up at Best Buy for ~$100. It's better than the 9200 overall, and probably has an edge in doom 3, granted at 640x480.
Click to expand...

They make the FX 5500 in PCI? :confused:

Edited to add: never mind, found some. :)
 
CastleBravo said:
My friend has a system with the following specs from Dell:

P4 2.0
512 MB PC 2100 RAM
Intel integrated graphics crap thing
NO AGP slot (!)

I actually looked inside the thing, those Dell bastards had a motherboard with a little white outline where the AGP slot should have been! Cheap f'ers. Unfortunately, buying a new motherboard or just junking the whole system aren't options.

So the question is, what is the best PCI graphics card available? He'd at least like a shot at playing Doom 3 decently at low settings. I've really got no idea, the best I've found on Newegg seem to be ATI 9200 series cards.
Click to expand...

My little brother has the same Dell system setup. I got him an XFX 5200 256mb(128-bit) from newegg also. I bought it mainly because its DX9 supported as oppose to 9200se DX8. Not sure if it would make such a huge diffrence/improvement but still. Im getting a solid 17fps playing Doom3 with few hiccups but tolerable. Farcry also gives me playable framerates.
 
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-140-041&depa=1

FX5700
14-140-041-06.jpg
 
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