FX5500 is on the weak side even for this build, a 5700 or a 5900 would be better. I don't know what you can find in Romania but your options should be a little better. Even a Radeon 9600 or a 9700 pro would be great.

an XP-1900 is 1600mhz, you want at least a 9600pro, forget the FX 5500 its a glorified FX 5200 with a 25mhz bumb in clock speed. So look for any of these

Radoen 9500
Radeon 9600
Radeon 9700
Radeon 9800

Geforce 4 Ti 4x00
Geforce FX 5700
Geforce FX 5900
Geforce 6600

Brave man, I have one of those PCCHIPS M825G boards here somewhere, could never get it to run reliably, one of the few PCChips that regardless of tweaking and messing I have given up on. horrible thing!

BSA Starfire wrote:

Brave man, I have one of those PCCHIPS M825G boards here somewhere, could never get it to run reliably, one of the few PCChips that regardless of tweaking and messing I have given up on. horrible thing!

Huh,for a strange reason,PCChips and ECS are reliable for me. Just when they have bad caps,then there comes trouble.

I actually regret I threw away a ECS K7VZA just because of bad caps back when I didn't have a good soldering iron (it was some cheapo 40w blue soldering iron,which I literally threw away. I got a 30/130w Kemot gun-shaped iron,which is the best for mobos). I couldn't find any ever since,and I'd want to find one,recap it and have it working. ECS likes to have those tiny buggers bulge,but nothing my iron can't save.

Check for badcaps on yours,I know these came with OSTs originally - I replaced them with a mixture of Chemicon KZE and Teapo for the high VRM side (the 16v caps) and Rubycon for the low (6.3v) side.

candle_86 & nforce4max - noted,but why the GF4 Ti line? I thought those were weak.

candle_86 & nforce4max - noted,but why the GF4 Ti line? I thought those were weak.

Even the lowest GF4 TI 4200 benches alot higher than a FX 5600. So its still a upgrade over a FX 5500. Unless you have high-end FX series cards they aren't worth it for DX9 games though but still decent choice for DX8 games.

Back in the day I had a P4 3.0GHz HT (prescott) with a EVGA FX-5700 Ultra and Half-life 2 I had to force the game to run in a lower DX 8 mode as DX 9 was not playable. The FX series for me was underwhelming to say the least but my later upgrade to a 7800GT was a happy one.

RogueTrip2012 wrote:

Even the lowest GF4 TI 4200 benches alot higher than a FX 5600. So its still a upgrade over a FX 5500. Unless you have high-end FX series cards they aren't worth it for DX9 games though but still decent choice for DX8 games.

Back in the day I had a P4 3.0GHz HT (prescott) with a EVGA FX-5700 Ultra and Half-life 2 I had to force the game to run in a lower DX 8 mode as DX 9 was not playable. The FX series for me was underwhelming to say the least but my later upgrade to a 7800GT was a happy one.

A Geforce FX 5600 Ultra is absolute comparable with a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 and can you see the difference between 8 - 9 in Half Life 2? Thought till 2005 "modern games" utilize heavily DirectX 7, 8 or OpenGL?!

Would recommend: Geforce 4 Ti 4400/4600/4800 SE/4800, Geforce FX 5700 Ultra, Geforce FX 5900 ~, Geforce FX 5950 Ultra, Radeon 9600 Pro/XT, Radeon 9500 Pro, Radeon 9700 Pro, Radeon 9800 ~.

exact wrote:

RogueTrip2012 wrote:

Even the lowest GF4 TI 4200 benches alot higher than a FX 5600. So its still a upgrade over a FX 5500. Unless you have high-end FX series cards they aren't worth it for DX9 games though but still decent choice for DX8 games.

Back in the day I had a P4 3.0GHz HT (prescott) with a EVGA FX-5700 Ultra and Half-life 2 I had to force the game to run in a lower DX 8 mode as DX 9 was not playable. The FX series for me was underwhelming to say the least but my later upgrade to a 7800GT was a happy one.

A Geforce FX 5600 Ultra is absolute comparable with a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 and can you see the difference between 8 - 9 in Half Life 2? Thought till 2005 "modern games" utilize heavily DirectX 7, 8 or OpenGL?!

Would recommend: Geforce 4 Ti 4400/4600/4800 SE/4800, Geforce FX 5700 Ultra, Geforce FX 5900 ~, Radeon 9600 Pro/XT, Radeon 9500 Pro, Radeon 9700 Pro, Radeon 9800 ~.

Not really the FX 5600 was a 4x1 or 2x2 design depending on what you needed it also required games to be optimized for it. A ti-4200 will beat it on older titles, tie it on games circa 2003 and only loose on games that are unplayable on both

What is a "4x1 or 2x2 design"?
The Geforce FX 5600 Ultra is faster in Doom 3, in the most games a bit slower, faster with AF, AA. So I don't see why it is not comparable performance-wise. It's like saying a Geforce 8800 GTS 640 MB is not comparable with a Geforce 8800 GT 512 MB, or a Radeon 9600 XT not with a Radeon 9500 Pro.

exact wrote:

What is a "4x1 or 2x2 design"?
The Geforce FX 5600 Ultra is faster in Doom 3, in the most games a bit slower, faster with AF, AA. So I don't see why it is not comparable performance-wise. It's like saying a Geforce 8800 GTS 640 MB is not comparable with a Geforce 8800 GT 512 MB, or a Radeon 9600 XT not with a Radeon 9500 Pro.

Well for starters an 8800GTS 640 is not even in the same ball game as an 8800GT, its often 10-12% slower in every title so bad comparison. And yes it is a tiny bit faster in Doom3, but in the majority of titles one would play with an FX 5600 the Ti 4200 will be 10-15% faster.

A 4x1 or 2x2 design is how it works. In multi texturing it will work like a 2x2 card same as how an FX 5200 works. The FX 5700 was really the card you wanted to use for midrange from the FX. The 5600 was just a sad disapointment.

candle_86 wrote:

Well for starters an 8800GTS 640 is not even in the same ball game as an 8800GT, its often 10-12% slower in every title so bad comparison. And yes it is a tiny bit faster in Doom3, but in the majority of titles one would play with an FX 5600 the Ti 4200 will be 10-15% faster. A 4x1 or 2x2 design is how it works. In multi texturing it will work like a 2x2 card same as how an FX 5200 works. The FX 5700 was really the card you wanted to use for midrange from the FX. The 5600 was just a sad disapointment.

As you can see some 8800 GTS 640 are even faster than a 8800 GT - http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware … n-review-2.html, http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware … n-review-4.html.
I would not say a tiny bit in Doom 3 - http://techreport.com/review/7200/doom-3-mid- … e-gfx-comparo/5.
With antiailising you don't have better framerates with a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 and still enough speed for most older games (2003 or older). Splinter Cell is a exception and Unreal Tournament 2003 (guess Unreal 2) with antiailising, but in UT03 the 4200 is equally too slow with antiailising. There was a revision of the 5600 Ultra with a faster core clock (400 Mhz instead 350) too. Yes the 5600 Ultra was overprized. This is years later irrelevant.

exact wrote:

(guess Unreal 2)

Relative good but the Pentium 4 is sure helping - http://www.ixbt.com/video/itogi-video/1203/it … aa-p4-1024.html, http://www.ixbt.com/video/itogi-video/1203/it … 2k-p4-1024.html. Interesting (at least for me) how the "small" Geforce FX 5900 SE perform and the Radeon 9700 Pro is a real monster.