OK, I know you folks have dealt with this question a few bazillion times, but here we go again, and thanks in advance for your help and/or patience.
I have a Compaq Deskpro EN PIII 733 Mhz machine (4x AGP/ 200 Watt PSU) and a 1Ghz chip waiting to be installed. My Geforce 2Ti is on the outs and dying fast from heat stroke (Fan has met it's match).
I want to upgrade to the best possible Graphics Card I can get to run in this poor thing, but have been running into a lot of System spec problems. It's been suggested to me elsewhere that finding a Geforce4 Ti 4600 would be about the best solution I can get (if I can find one anywhere, which has proven difficult thusfar).
What I'd like to know is if anyone has any alternate suggestions or thoughts on this? I have been looking at FX5200's as an alternative, but can't tell if they're an upgrade from the Ti, a side-grade (lol) or a downgrade. What attracts me to the 5200 is the DirectX9 support. Benchmarks I've seen for end of year 2003 seem to suggest the Ti is a better card, and of course, the Ti line in general was very well received/reviewed (but appears only to support up to DX8 as far as I've been able to find.
The big bottleneck I'm running into here seems to be a spec very few manufacturers seem to publish widely... Power Supply Minimum Requirements. A few of the 5200's I've looked at specify 250 Watt PSU minimums, though others haven't listed any PSU requirements at all. I haven;t seen any PSU requirements listed on ANY 4 Ti's.
I'm told by a Compaq enthusiast that the newer Radeons will just muck with my BIOS so that rules out the Radeon 9x00 series I guess.
My brain hurts and I am having trouble getting any kind of comprehensive data together. Can anyone help? Please? My fan sounds like a cat got stuck in a blender and it's driving me nuts.
Machine will be used primarily for 3D Rendering and Games ( I've a stack of 1-3 year old games I'm still trying to get to, so Doom 3 / HL2 is NOT an issue for a while yet! lol)
Any help any one can offer would be most appreciated.
"I'm sorry Dave... I can't do that."
I have a Compaq Deskpro EN PIII 733 Mhz machine (4x AGP/ 200 Watt PSU) and a 1Ghz chip waiting to be installed. My Geforce 2Ti is on the outs and dying fast from heat stroke (Fan has met it's match).
I want to upgrade to the best possible Graphics Card I can get to run in this poor thing, but have been running into a lot of System spec problems. It's been suggested to me elsewhere that finding a Geforce4 Ti 4600 would be about the best solution I can get (if I can find one anywhere, which has proven difficult thusfar).
What I'd like to know is if anyone has any alternate suggestions or thoughts on this? I have been looking at FX5200's as an alternative, but can't tell if they're an upgrade from the Ti, a side-grade (lol) or a downgrade. What attracts me to the 5200 is the DirectX9 support. Benchmarks I've seen for end of year 2003 seem to suggest the Ti is a better card, and of course, the Ti line in general was very well received/reviewed (but appears only to support up to DX8 as far as I've been able to find.
The big bottleneck I'm running into here seems to be a spec very few manufacturers seem to publish widely... Power Supply Minimum Requirements. A few of the 5200's I've looked at specify 250 Watt PSU minimums, though others haven't listed any PSU requirements at all. I haven;t seen any PSU requirements listed on ANY 4 Ti's.
I'm told by a Compaq enthusiast that the newer Radeons will just muck with my BIOS so that rules out the Radeon 9x00 series I guess.
My brain hurts and I am having trouble getting any kind of comprehensive data together. Can anyone help? Please? My fan sounds like a cat got stuck in a blender and it's driving me nuts.
Machine will be used primarily for 3D Rendering and Games ( I've a stack of 1-3 year old games I'm still trying to get to, so Doom 3 / HL2 is NOT an issue for a while yet! lol)
Any help any one can offer would be most appreciated.
"I'm sorry Dave... I can't do that."