Vidcard recommendations for a somewhat vintage PC...

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His Royal Majesty King V
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Vidcard recommendations for a somewhat vintage PC...

Post by His Royal Majesty King V »

All,

Ok, in another thread I posted my saga of an el-cheapo project put together with somewhat mismatched parts.

Anyway, I've got an old Intel BX motherboard running an 800MHz Celeron.

I want to get a videocard for it.

My requirements:

1) I'd like it to be reasonably inexpensive
2) I'd very much prefer passive cooling only.

I'm thinking one of the lower-end Radeons. Now, I know that I don't need the latest and greatest, because let's face it, running an 800MHz CPU, I think I know where my limiting factor is.

I'd prefer ATI, and I'd prefer to avoid the one with the cut-down memory pipelines (ie, like the SE versions) because I've heard that even as slow as my system is, that WILL create a noticeable slowdown.

Only I can't keep the plethora of models straight in my head...

Thoughts/suggestions?
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Wiggy
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Post by Wiggy »

R8500 runs cool as a cucumber. The fan on the retail HS is sooo pitifully small, is runs totally silently. A SS7 50mm * 50mm passive heatsink will be much better. Or a Zalman NB cooler would be good. The stock HS is only about 10ish mm tall.

R8500 are only £30 tops on Ebay. The LEs have slightly lower Core/Mem speeds, but nothing worth worrying about on a 800Mhz machine
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Post by georgep1 »

Wiggy's suggestion is a good one. If you want to go new, the 9200 (not 9200 SE) wouldn't be bad, probably slightly slower than an 8500.
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