Windows XP Graphics Card Showdown - MUST SEE - Need Old School Advice

bitzorbites

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Alright Guys,


I've recently experienced an increase of attention towards my retro gaming builds, and I'd like to ask the community for some much needed advice, and I really think you guys are going to like this thread because its got something for everyone, a bit of bargain hunting, a bit of throwing up some bench marks to prove your arguments, and a bit of nostalgia for the old days so lets get started shall we? all prices and links MUST be from either eBay, or a surplus site with excess components like (server monkey?), but mostly eBay is preferred.


Since I am a retro system builder and benchmark hunter, for modular design, we wanna search for components known for good compatibility and stay away from proprietary design items, so that we can flip flop components around as much as possible when doing testing and recording for YouTube. This video will basically be a graphics card Showdown type video and I need help selecting some components that will provide some good entertainment value for my viewers without breaking my bank. Plus old hardware is cheap anyways



While I've made a point to say the configurations will be changed around ALOT for benchmarking, Some of the processors these cards will be paired with ARE:

LGA 775: Pentium 4 (haven't chosen model yet), Pentium D 945, Core 2 duo E7500, Core 2 Quad q6600, Core 2 quad q9450

Control System to let graphics card run @ 100 percent : FX-8350 OC'd to 4.6 Ghz paired with MSI 970 Gaming MB, also and/or an Intel i5-4590 paired with Asrock H97m Pro 4



1. First up, we need a graphics card for PCIE 2.0 in the 10 dollar price range, with good support for windows 98 and windows XP, extra points for windows 7

2. We also need a 15 dollar GPU with the only requirement being good support for windows 7 and highest available performance

3. Best 3 Available Graphics card Period for 20 dollars

4. Best 3 available graphics card for 30 Dollars


I want multiple people to give multiple suggestions for each range, so I can buy 2 or three cards for benching in each price point.

bonus We need an ATX PC case that's not completely broken for 15 bucks or under SHIPPED. Extra points for being under 10 dollars and extra points for looking cool.




For TL;DR people, skip the last part if you don't feel like recommending games.



The Fun Part

Please Recommend Your favorite retro pc games for windows 98 and windows xp! I would love to play a game that would be like a retro version of Dead Space, I like ANYTHING to do with Zombies and first person shooters, Resident evil series 1-5 all work on xp. If you have a really awesome game recommendation for windows 7 or 10 go ahead and say it as well, I wouldn't want to miss out on learning about a new game.... Even if you think its something that's been mentioned a million times, say it anyways because I've missed out on pretty much every pc game for the last 15 years. I may be a tech enthusiast but I wasn't always an avid gamer. So let the comments fly get ready to represent your favorite cards of the past!
 
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Very much into retro PC gaming systems myself. Currently have two boxes. One running Win98 with Voodoo4 card, and another WinXp with 7800 GS. Both AthlonXP DDR2 systems.

One issue I see with your PCIe 2.0 desire is drivers for those cards are far less likely to be Win98 or XP compatible. I believe this is why older AGP cards are in such high demand right now, and command much higher prices than comparable PCIe cards.
PLEASE DON'T QUOTE YET, I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED THIS AND WILL UPDATE.

This seems to be interesting.

1. Alright for the 10 dollar price point you really can't find more than 512 MB Vram, I looked on the AMD's site and there are drivers available for Windows XP but no 98. ] Radeon HD 4550
2. Found this GT 220 1GB for 14.99$.
3. For 20 dollars:
i. HD 7570 1 GB GDDR5
ii. EVGA GTX 280 1 GB DDR3
iii. HD 5670 1 GB GDDR3
3. For 30 Dollars:
i. EVGA GTX 470 1.25 GB
ii. HD 7770 MSI 1 GB
iii. HD 5770 ! GB Sapphire

These are the graphics cards I could find. I am really hoping someone else participates.
 

bitzorbites

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Oct 26, 2015
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While I understand your point of view, I am allowing pcie into the competition because AGP is far too limiting, I wanna open up the showdown to as many possible configurations as possible, and also I consider AGP a little more reasonable for Pentium 4 gaming.
 
Well, retro can mean a lot of different things for different people, because of my age, Pong is as retro as one could go back to. For some retro could also mean some C2D Intel but for me it's just an old clunker to be used in less than favorable conditions.
Windows 98 for instance were still largely DOS with a GUI and are unusable for XP machines and that precludes anything PCIe and barely can include early AGP cards, programs and game also largely 16bit only and actually running in DOS.
I'm afraid you'd have to greatly narrow HW requirements such a computer has to run on.
 

bitzorbites

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Awesome work Ali! The Dell Radeon 7570 was a very good choice, I already own that card and it will be making an appearance in the benchmarking. The GTX 280 Seemed like a good suggestion at first, however, upon review, every other 280 on ebay either: A. The seller seems to think its worth between 50 and 100$ or B. They want 15 or 20 dollars to ship a 15 or 20 dollar card. Both of those options didn't seem very budget oriented, so we've chosen to take a pass here. moving forwards,
My searches also seem to place the 5670 more firmly in the 30 dollar price point after shipping, as I did not see any auctions available for sniping . Sensing this trend, the OP shall soon be modified to reflect the fact that we want to try to avoid paying more than half the cost of the card to ship it, which is why we've tried to include sites like server monkey as a source for links and products.

Shipping costs aside, you have provided some very reasonable suggestions, however, did you pick these based on price alone or have you some bench marks to quell my mouthwatering appetite for sexy old hardware???? :]
 

bitzorbites

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Fair Point, I'll clarify as to the era of graphics card, Basically, the price range is the ONLY KING here, that, and guaranteed hardware support, we want cards that specifically say on the manufacturer's website that Windows XP support and drivers are available. basically, don't recommend an OEM card of some kind that fails to provide windows xp drivers because the machine was designed for windows 7, but yet its a good buy and can be had on ebay for 15 dollars. Does that clarify a bit better?

Since you've responded, can I atleast get a few card reccomendations from you? You seem to have a decent opinion on the matter and If you've got a few bench marks to prove which cards you think are a good value, I'm highly inclined to take your opinion into account when selecting a few more cards for this graphics card showdown.
 
Ugh, don't have any of that old stuff any more, save for an Atari 512 and C20 Commodore. A month ago I put an old clunker for friends kid. C2D... E something of 2.8GHz and HD6450 1GB, 4 GB of RAM etc. It's usable for GTA2 and 3 , Euro truck2 and games from few years ago. It's not with me so can't benchmark it.
If I run into something suitable I'll run Passmark on it.
 


Thanks alot, it was fun doing that. I am sorry I really didn't look at the shipping costs I live in Pakistan and have only done online shopping once so I guess I don't know well what to focus on and what not. So am I going to need to re-do this or we'll be waiting for other suggestions?
Well ofc I did actually try looking for the best price to performance and sadly I don't have benchmarks. I generally have some knowledge about these and picked them just by myself.
 

bitzorbites

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Sounds like a nice little gaming pc on the cheap, I like it! These make perfect little gaming pcs to teach kids why console gaming sucks, get them interested in programming, electronics, maker boards, projects they can build and create with their hands. Probably the very same reason why I love building computers :]

If I can get a couple more responses, I will actually make a video comparing some of the top cards in this thread, as I will order the ones I don't have off ebay. I'm surprised no one else has seemed to have an interest in this topic? Windows XP isn't so old that it can't still handle modern games. If someone was dirt poor they may still consider building a windows xp computer out of parts given to them by friends, so this information is actually still quite relevant.
 


I think you'll need the mods' help for that. This thread is lost now and no one can see it except for the people who saw it when it started.
 

Susquehannock

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Very much into retro PC gaming systems myself. Currently have two boxes. One running Win98 with Voodoo4 card, and another WinXp with 7800 GS. Both AthlonXP DDR2 systems.

One issue I see with your PCIe 2.0 desire is drivers for those cards are far less likely to be Win98 or XP compatible. I believe this is why older AGP cards are in such high demand right now, and command much higher prices than comparable PCIe cards.
 
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