Collector*AFZ* 0 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 I have finally come to the conclusion that my HP pavilion is a piece of crap. My onboard video is biting the dust and I am going to have to buy a PCI video card as my system has no AGP slot. Is there anyone out there who is running a PCI card that can help me figure out which one is best for my system? The onboard card is a S3 Prosavage, which I believe uses Nvidia technology. Will that make a difference on what card I need to buy. I am running 256 MB of SDRAM with a AMD 1.3Ghtz processor. Any suggestions? the_collector Quote Link to post Share on other sites
buff 0 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 (edited) The ProSavage is from S3, its basically an old Savage4. PCI cards are expensive and slow, it might be better to buy an NForce2 board for $50, add some DDR ram for about $30-$40, and then get an AGP video card. The later on u can get an AthlonXP and oc it or something. thats what I would recommend A 9600pro costs about $115, or for NVidia you can get a FX5700 for $140. If u want to spend more....... If u can only get a pci card, get a GF4-MX440. that way u wont waist much money on an obsolete card, and can save up for an upgrade. Edited February 10, 2004 by buff Quote Link to post Share on other sites
snakebite1967 0 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 as Buff said but if that isnt an option then your best bet would be a pci gf4 mx, im not totaly up on pci versions but if i remember rightly there isnt a true gaming pci option your basicly stuck with lower end ATI cards IE 7000 or a gf2 mx or a gf4 mx Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dannik 43 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 I believe that the two "high-end" PCI card options are the PowerColor Radeon 7500 64meg card and the GF4MX440 64meg card. I've used both cards in their AGP form factor, and I strongly recommend the GeForce card over the ATi in this case, as the GF will likely be cheaper, easier to find, and perform at least slightly better in general. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
buff 0 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 The 7500 is slower then the GF4-MX440. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aggressor 0 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 collector, nice to see someone else with an HP . My sig has all my craptacular hp pavilion specs, i'm running the ATI Radeon 7500, no other card would work due to oem psu issues..search back a couple of months for posts that i started on this topic. The Radeon does a fairly decent job on the entire GR line up, GTA:VC, HALO, SOAF, and Call of Duty. Happy hunting Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RooK 0 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 I have an old HP Pav running a celeron 700 elsewhere in the house. It is running a Radeon 32mb PCI card, and seems to handle most games decently. You just can't get the performance from a PCI card anywhere near a AGP due to bandwidth limitations, even if they had the same memory and core. I second going for the GF4MX PCI card (cheapness and availability) or just upgrading the mb and getting a decent AGP card. But I'm still a diehard ATi nut. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WickedWeasel 0 Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 You might as well stick with your setup for now and go with a Radeon 7500 pci with the 64 mb ddr. That card will more than keep up with any card in its price range. Save your money for upgrading your whole system at a later date. I have ran both the nvidea cards and ati radeon cards in pci form....the ati cards always held up better and gave "me" better performance....thats why i have an ati radeon 9800 xt on my new beast. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt03 0 Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 (edited) Don't know if this is still relevant but you can get a GeForce FX 5200 PCI card with 128MB DDR RAM. I increased my FPS 15 with GR on high settings from my old setup using medium settings. I had an old Radeon 7000. Edited March 26, 2004 by Matt03 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ghost gamer 0 Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 (edited) Collector*AFZ*.....my first pc was a HP Pavilion...1 gig anthlon cpu and a VIA chipset based MB....I stuck in a Geforce mx 420/64 mb, 512 mb of PNY ram and a sound blaster 512....it runs most stuff well and thats with high settings....pick up something similiar to what I have.....it will be "cheap"....heck I'd crank up your ram to 512 too....that won't cost alot either....as far as the onboard video...no problema...simply go into your BIOS(or CMOS, same thing)....not sure what key you hit to get into BIOS...F1..I think..at bootup...and disable the onboard video....carefully install your new PCI video card and reboot and install drivers from the cd that came with your card...... Edited March 26, 2004 by ghost gamer Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CR6 0 Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 The best recent round-up of PCI graphics cards is here: http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=445 I've found that the FX 5200 actually runs older DirectX 7 games slower than the GF4 MX. However, if most of the games you're playing now are DX8/9, then the FX 5200 is the way to go. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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