Suggestion

[Guest]

Hi,
I own a quide old system by now. A PII 350, BX MOtherbord,
128 MB ram , TNT gfx card.
Because of lack of money, and since I am intrested in
gfx programming I thought to upgrade first my Gfx card. I want the gfx card to be from nVidia because of all of these neat extension someone can experiment with.
What card do you suggest I should buy. I am between a plain
GForce or a GForce 2MX card. Would the speed increase in my apps justify the money spend. I am looking for a good cost/performance ratio for my system.
Note that I intend to upgrade all the system components during this year.

Thanks in advance
Dimi

 

[blah]

If you are planning upgrade all the components, get MX, it will be good thing for little longer run... heh, if you could afford GTS 32, it woulb be little better, otherwise, does not matter what card you'll get now, I would just wait until whole thing upgrade, and then get even cheaper card, is they comming down pretty well with time... heh

Post, we'll do the search...

 

[Guest]

A geforce on a 350mhz is nothing, you will get nothing from it, your cpu is too slow.
If you want to upgrade your system with low cost and performance parts look this:
*an athlon 800mhz is fine, with your 128 ram
and a geforce256 because it's fastest than the mx.
This will cost you 300$ ithink but not more.

 

[Guest]

If I upgrade to an athlon, I must also change my motherboard
(Asus P2B). I am not sure If anything else has to change. The memory is also at 100 Mhz. Are you sure this doesnt cost more than 300$? Why do you say that the GForce is faster than the GForce2 MX? Is this correct?

 

[Guest]

An athlon 800mhz cpu will cost you 100$,
a mbd will cost you 90$ to 110$,
and the geforce256 will cost you 140$.
But if you go to a duron 800mhz it's fine, it works well,
and it costs less
And your ram are well, i think it is good for a duron 800mhz.

 

[Guest]

This might sound stupid, but does the situation change if I upgrade CPU to a PII 450. This way I dont have to change the motherboard.

 

[Guest]

No, a pentium 450mhz can't be enough for the geforce,
you wand at least a 800mhz cpu, and the duron is good for you, it's a low cost.
I have a p2 450mhz and a creative tnt2 32mb, and the cpu is a bottleneck for my tnt, what if you put a geforce with it????

 

[Guest]

Ok thanks for the advice, the duron 800 (isnt there a 850) is probably the pest low cost/performance choice. Do you mean that the GForce 256 (with or whithout DDR) is faster than the GForce2 MX?

 

[Guest]

Yes i think there is a duron 850mhz, but i am not sure.
About the geforce, the geforce256 sdr is equal to a geforce2 mx, but the geforce256 ddr is fastest than the mx.

 

[Guest]

Yes i think there is a duron 850mhz, but i am not sure.
About the geforce, the geforce256 sdr is equal to a geforce2 mx, but the geforce256 ddr is fastest than the geforce2 mx.

 

[Guest]

Ok, nice hint. I did not know that about the GForce256.
Do you think keeping the 100 MHz ram will result in problems?

Thanks alot

 

[Guest]

yes, your ram will work well, and you can upgrad it later, when you have money for them.

 

[Unolocogringo]

since you already have a very good motherboard,consider upgrading the cpu with a p3 700e,(p2b with updated bios will take up to p3 800)much less than a duron and motherboard,and better performance,and most of these will run at 133fsb giving you a 933 mhz cpu.the p2b will run the pci at 33 and the agp at 89 at 133 fsb so a good video card is needed at this speed.if you have good memory(micron, crucial,ibm etc.) there is a very good chance that it will run at 133 fsb ,set your bios to 10ns and reduce timing to cas3. most of the people here are amd fanatics so they will tell you to buy amd and not the info you want to know.

so for the same $300 you can get an 700+ processor and a geforce mx card. i also shop on ebay ,much cheaper than a retail store.

 

[Take_Out]

Take a gander at the GeForce 256 DDR. I have seen them for $120 at www.SG3D. These are Leadteks, too. Good Luck, Take-Out

The early bird gets the worm. The early worm gets the bird.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Take_Out on 03/10/01 02:27 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Are you sure this can be done?
I have a Slot 1 motherboeard dont the new CPU need FPGA or PGA slots? Do you know anyone who has done this?
I want also a stable system.

 

[Guest]

on pricewatch, there is a geforce2 gts for $140 msi brand. it has tv out and 32mb ddr, so i would suggest you get that over the mx or the original w/ ddr.

 

[Guest]

Adapter cards can be had that will take care of both the socket to slot conversion and the voltage differences, but to answer your original question.... There is no harm done to the speed of your system if you buy a new graphics card now. Even though the CPU will be the bottleneck on most games, you will still see speed improvements in certain areas just with the new card. Now none of this would make any sense except that you're upgrading your system soon. But you are, so contrary to the overall tone of the previous answers, there is nothing wrong with buying a faster grahics card now and getting some benifit from it, and then getting the rest of the benifit later when you upgrade your whole system.

Regards,
Warden

 

[Guest]

I was just looking for the cheapest way to bring my system as up to date as possible changing as less things as possible and keeping the cost low. I did not know that the P2B board can take PIII processors. Although I am not sure what would be the best processor to use( can both katmai and coppermine cpu be used? they have different voltages), or how to set up the system that way ie. which bios update. Can anyone help me here? Clearly using a PIII processor with the currend motherboard is cheaper and implies less efford than bying a new M/B and Duron Processor. Although the second choice might be better for the future.

 

[Guest]

asus has a bios update for the p2b for it to support coppermine, so if you decide to just upgrade the cpu, you still have to make sure it's 100mhz fsb.

 

[Guest]

So this means that there is no problem with the differences in the voltage, and the P2B can provide correct voltage for a coppermine?