GeForce vs Voodoo

All: I'm in a bit of a pickle, thought I'd ask those that know much more about this than I... I'm stuck with a PCI slot motherboard w/onboard vid/sound that uses a 1.3 Ghz Celeron. (And get this, the vid card has 1 meg of memory! I know, I know, you get what you pay for... but this machine is all I could afford.) The onboard vid is definitely a bottleneck, I was thinking about adding a Voodoo 5500 card... but those are going for ridiculous prices for a card using a discountinued format. (I've watched them sell on eBay for over $100 of late.) Well, I think I remember reading here on ras that GeForce made a Ti200 or something in PCI that offers similiar performance of the Voodoo 5 card but still has a support base AND sells for cheaper? Your knowlegable input would be much appreciated. Please feel free to point out the pros and cons of going either way. Thank you very much. Andre Ming

"L.A. Ming" wrote:

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> > All: > > I'm in a bit of a pickle, thought I'd ask those that know much more > about this than I... > > I'm stuck with a PCI slot motherboard w/onboard vid/sound that uses a > 1.3 Ghz Celeron. (And get this, the vid card has 1 meg of memory! I > know, I know, you get what you pay for... but this machine is all I > could afford.) > > The onboard vid is definitely a bottleneck, I was thinking about > adding a Voodoo 5500 card... but those are going for ridiculous prices > for a card using a discountinued format. (I've watched them sell on > eBay for over $100 of late.) > > Well, I think I remember reading here on ras that GeForce made a Ti200 > or something in PCI that offers similiar performance of the Voodoo 5 > card but still has a support base AND sells for cheaper? > > Your knowlegable input would be much appreciated. Please feel free to > point out the pros and cons of going either way. > > Thank you very much.

Gainward is making a GF4-MX420 in PCI flavor, it's got 64 MB of DDR memory and would probably be your best bet, it's fairly cheap as well, over here they go for about US130 but I'd guess they'd be around 100 in the US http://www.gainward.com/us/products/gwd_gf4_pro450tv_pci.htm Other than that, you can get the GF2-MX in PCI as well, both in the 200 and 400 flavor, not much cheaper than than the GF4-MX but probably easier to find, and a fair bit slower, especially those 200 cards, you should also be able to find the Kyro II based cards in PCI, like the Hercules Prophet 4000 XT 64MB which is not a bad card for the price either I'd def try to find a 64 MB card though, that will make up a fair bit for the lack of an AGP interface Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy http://www.theuspits.com "A man is only as old as the woman he feels........" --Groucho Marx--

Unless you only play older games I could not recommend either a Voodoo or a Kyro, esp. with a low spec processor. Nearly all recent games support T&L and it really does help, esp. with slower CPU's. Go for the GeForce. "Goy Larsen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> "L.A. Ming" wrote: > > > > All: > > > > I'm in a bit of a pickle, thought I'd ask those that know much more > > about this than I... > > > > I'm stuck with a PCI slot motherboard w/onboard vid/sound that uses

a > > 1.3 Ghz Celeron. (And get this, the vid card has 1 meg of memory! I > > know, I know, you get what you pay for... but this machine is all I > > could afford.) > > > > The onboard vid is definitely a bottleneck, I was thinking about > > adding a Voodoo 5500 card... but those are going for ridiculousprices > > for a card using a discountinued format. (I've watched them sell on > > eBay for over $100 of late.) > > > > Well, I think I remember reading here on ras that GeForce made aTi200 > > or something in PCI that offers similiar performance of the Voodoo 5 > > card but still has a support base AND sells for cheaper? > > > > Your knowlegable input would be much appreciated. Please feel freeto

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> > point out the pros and cons of going either way. > > > > Thank you very much. > > Gainward is making a GF4-MX420 in PCI flavor, it's got 64 MB of DDR > memory and would probably be your best bet, it's fairly cheap as well, > over here they go for about US130 but I'd guess they'd be around 100

in > the US > > http://www.gainward.com/us/products/gwd_gf4_pro450tv_pci.htm > > Other than that, you can get the GF2-MX in PCI as well, both in the200

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> and 400 flavor, not much cheaper than than the GF4-MX but probably > easier to find, and a fair bit slower, especially those 200 cards, you > should also be able to find the Kyro II based cards in PCI, like the > Hercules Prophet 4000 XT 64MB which is not a bad card for the price > either > > I'd def try to find a 64 MB card though, that will make up a fair bit > for the lack of an AGP interface > > > Beers and cheers > (uncle) Goy > > http://www.theuspits.com > > "A man is only as old as the woman he feels........" > --Groucho Marx--

I doubt there's much difference in the GeForce MX cards going from the GF2 to GF4. As I recall there were pretty big differences (in speed) in the GF2's depending on the manufacturer, but most of the ones you'll find are slower. Here's an old article that may help you decide. http://www.slottweak.com/v5500%20-%20gf2mx.htm Take it for what it's worth. Wasn't there a Radeon 32 in PCI also? That might be something to consider. -- Slot Tweaks & Reviews www.slottweak.com "L.A. Ming" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > All: > > I'm in a bit of a pickle, thought I'd ask those that know much more > about this than I... > > I'm stuck with a PCI slot motherboard w/onboard vid/sound that uses a > 1.3 Ghz Celeron. (And get this, the vid card has 1 meg of memory! I > know, I know, you get what you pay for... but this machine is all I > could afford.) > > The onboard vid is definitely a bottleneck, I was thinking about > adding a Voodoo 5500 card... but those are going for ridiculous prices > for a card using a discountinued format. (I've watched them sell on > eBay for over $100 of late.) > > Well, I think I remember reading here on ras that GeForce made a Ti200 > or something in PCI that offers similiar performance of the Voodoo 5 > card but still has a support base AND sells for cheaper? > > Your knowlegable input would be much appreciated. Please feel free to > point out the pros and cons of going either way. > > Thank you very much. > > Andre Ming

You can get a GF4 MX400 PCI for about $50 or a Radeon 7000 PCI for about $50. I think the Radeon is faster. -Tim "L.A. Ming" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> All: > > I'm in a bit of a pickle, thought I'd ask those that know much more > about this than I... > > I'm stuck with a PCI slot motherboard w/onboard vid/sound that uses a > 1.3 Ghz Celeron. (And get this, the vid card has 1 meg of memory! I > know, I know, you get what you pay for... but this machine is all I > could afford.) > > The onboard vid is definitely a bottleneck, I was thinking about > adding a Voodoo 5500 card... but those are going for ridiculous prices > for a card using a discountinued format. (I've watched them sell on > eBay for over $100 of late.) > > Well, I think I remember reading here on ras that GeForce made a Ti200 > or something in PCI that offers similiar performance of the Voodoo 5 > card but still has a support base AND sells for cheaper? > > Your knowlegable input would be much appreciated. Please feel free to > point out the pros and cons of going either way. > > Thank you very much. > > Andre Ming

[email hidden] (L.A. Ming) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>... > All: > > I'm in a bit of a pickle, thought I'd ask those that know much more > about this than I... > You should ask yourself "Which games am I going to play the most?" The Voodoo 5500 is really great for GPL and other Glide games. I don't think you can do any better for those games, short of the high-end Geforce4 Ti or Radeon 9x00. But if you're wanting the max performance for the "latest and greatest" games, like F12002 or N2K2, there's simply no option to a new MB with an AGP slot. > The onboard vid is definitely a bottleneck, I was thinking about > adding a Voodoo 5500 card... but those are going for ridiculous prices > for a card using a discountinued format. (I've watched them sell on > eBay for over $100 of late.) Well, again, the reason they are selling for those prices is that they are STILL very good cards for Glide-based games like GPL. If your budget is too limited, but your main game is going to be GPL, you might look at just getting a Voodoo 3 PCI instead. They are cheap on eBay (under $25 at times) and will still give you a solid 36fps in GPL, especially with a 1.6Ghz CPU. > Well, I think I remember reading here on ras that GeForce made a Ti200 > or something in PCI that offers similiar performance of the Voodoo 5 > card but still has a support base AND sells for cheaper? Any of the newer Geforce 4 chips are way faster than a Voodoo 5, BUT they are going to be severely bandwidth limited on the PCI bus. They should be running on AGP 2.0 or better MB. Otherwise you're just wasting your money, IMHO. - Ted D.