I have an older PC: Windows XP Pro OS, Dual PIII processors, 500MHz clock speed, 256MB system RAM, nVidia Geforce FX 5500 OC video card (256MB video memory), 300W power supply. I would like to upgrade my video card mainly for gaming; however, I don't need to run any cutting edge games. I don't have a lot of money to spend and I'm sure my processor will bottleneck my system at some point so I've been looking at the older nVidia Geforce4 Ti series cards (4200, 4400, 4600, 4800). Although they don't have as much memory as my current video card, the memory they do have is much faster. From my research, the 64MB versions have a small amount of video memory but the memory is quite fast for an older card; whereas the 128MB versions have twice as much video memory but the memory is slower.
My questions:

1. Am I correct in assuming I will get better video throughput and frome rates with one of these Ti video cards than with my current video card?
2. If so, which video configuration would give me the best performance: the faster 64MB versions or the slower 128MB versions?

Thanks.

No, you will be doing a downgrade.

well if you just tell is what ur budget is, we will give you a better list of cards.

Sure.
My budget is around $50.
And I am partial to nVidia chipsets.

If you have an agp 4x or 8x you could get a radeon 9600xt wich is much better then an fx5500 and it fits your budget.
What games do you play?

Unfortunately, I only have an AGP 2x slot and I play mostly simulation games.

Dude, you SERIOUSLY need to buy a new PC.

Forget the 50$, get 500$ and buy a new PC.

No point in upgrading it in part.
I agree with Track on this, it's all or none.

Putting an X1650Pro or GF7600GS (the two at the edge of your price range) on that rig would be pointless, the memory and the CPU are going to hold you back.

The FX5500 is likely rendering all the rest of the system can throw to it. 256MB and those 2 P3-500s are killing you (few games would even take advantage of the dual procs with that little memory).

I'm pretty surprised some still use pentium III's as their desktops. Anyway, you should really just get a whole new setup and ditch the plant to upgrade, no sense in upgrading with a cpu like that holding you back.
Tom's has an article bout budget desktops that perform relatively well for budget gamers. I think they spent less than $500 and still got a good system running.