How about the new Nexus 430W value PSU? It's got very good reviews.

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1681.html

None of those cards is particularly power hungry, so your 250W should be fine. I think they usually recommend 300W in the official specs, but that's an overestimation to compensate for people who buy cheapy overrrated PSUs.

Also, go with a 6200 over the other two, it's the fastest by a good margin.

retro games 100 wrote:

How about the new Nexus 430W value PSU? It's got very good reviews.

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1681.html

I'm afraid that PSU will not fit in my case 🙁 I think the one i have now is a "flex" type?

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I think i will go for the Geforce 6200 and see what happens 😎

PowerPie5000 wrote:

i'm limited to low-profile AGP cards only so thinking about getting either a Geforce FX5200, 6200 or maybe a 7300LE?

I have never seen a 7300LE in AGP, you mean a 7600GS instead?

I owned four 6200 AGP cards, and whilst I normally like the low-end nvidia cards the 6200 have caused me some troubles: Two of them tended to ruin systems of recovering from STR standby state (ASUS+MSI). One of them had leaking capacitors (EVGA). One of them occasionally gave the weirdest Direct-X renderings (MSI). My 7600GS (MSI) passive is now also dead, I guess it overheated, same for the passive 6600 (Gigabyte) before that. 🙁

I still like the 6200, when it does behave. But the Geforce MX440 remains the last trustworthy AGP card IMHO...

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

None of those cards is particularly power hungry, so your 250W should be fine.

I run one 6200 in a 235W P-III system.

gerwin wrote:

I have never seen a 7300LE in AGP, you mean a 7600GS instead?

Your right! the only AGP version i can find is the 7300GT... it's not low profile though.

gerwin wrote:

I still like the 6200, when it does behave. But the Geforce MX440 remains the last trustworthy AGP card IMHO...

I was never to keen on the MX440 as i had one years ago and found it to be quite slow with no hardware pixel shader support.

How does the Radeon 9200SE or 9250SE stack up against the Geforce 6200?

Calculate your PSU requirements here:

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/Power

Still has the FX5200 and pentium 4 listed.

I had a micro-ATX system with a 180W PSU and adding an MX440 and SBPCI basically blew it - I think it comes out at about 180W on this page. Maybe it was a cheap PSU [it was an NEC machine].

PowerPie5000 wrote:

I was never to keen on the MX440 as i had one years ago and found it to be quite slow with no hardware pixel shader support.

For the time it was a nice step up from the TNT's and Geforce MX's, because it has DDR RAM. It is slow now indeed, although the 128-bit one is okay, but the 5200 is just as slow, and the 6200 is in my experience not as reliable (This is probably the fault of the PCB design and component quality). The 6200 is NVidia's last low-profile + passively cooled AGP offering.

PowerPie5000 wrote:

How does the Radeon 9200SE or 9250SE stack up against the Geforce 6200?

Ati 9200 is slower I guess, as it is quite a bit older. I removed two of these, once because it wasn't very DOS/VESA compatible, and the other time because it couldn't anti-alias 3D scenes in a window.

Maybe it was a cheap PSU [it was an NEC machine].

Cheap PSU is a possibility, though there could be other factors.

Unfortunately, total wattage isn't the whole story. You also have to look at the amperage available on certain rails. Like, a 300W PSU might put out 30A on the 5V rail and another 20A on the 3.3V, but only 4A on the 12V. So a system might only need 100W in total, but if it draws 50 of those watts from the 12V line, your PSU isn't gonna like that too much.

That shouldn't affect OP much, though, since 18A on the 12V rail should be more than plenty.

As for the 9200, be careful about those. The ones with 128-bit memory aren't too bad, a bit slower than a 6200 but still passable. It's better than a 5200, FWIW. But the more common 64-bit 9200/9250 is absolutely useless. Don't take one of those even if it's given to you, it's not worth it.

I've got an XFX 6200 64 bit card which was on a PIII with a 200w PSU + 2 cd drives, 1 hd and an NIC and never had any problems. Also got an 8400gs on my matx system currently running on a 225w psu, similarly without any probs. Any generic POS PSU is ok for cards this low down the scale methinks, and a 250w HEC should definitely be ok.

Would even a Geforce 4 MX440 OR MX4000 be much faster than my current onboard graphics? (Intel Extreme 2).

After using the PSU calculator i have decided my PSU should be fine for any low-end GPU that has more power than the dodgy onboard Intel graphics.... now i just have to find a cheap low-profile AGP card 😀

Would even a Geforce 4 MX440 OR MX4000 be much faster than my current onboard graphics?

Extreme 2... thats an 865G, right? Then yes, even a GF4 MX would be a noticeable step up. Also, switching to a dedicated graphics card would improve overall system performance a bit, since the memory bandwidth would no longer be shared with the onboard graphics.

I don't think you would feel a noticeable difference with an MX440... go with a 6200 at least.

It also depends on wheter you want a DVI connector on your card.

Ive just been browsing the net trying to find some benchmark results and it seems the Geforce 4 MX series is not that much faster than the Intel chip (Intel 865GV). A Geforce FX5200 is more than double the performance and is very cheap to buy (pixel shader support too)... I'm also going to keep an eye out for a cheap Geforce 6200, Thanks for all the suggestions 😎

Edit: i don't really need a DVI connector... it would just come as a bonus!

If you do decide to get an FX5200 (I personally like them), make sure it's a 128-bit version, not 64-bit. They seem to be able to cope with OC'ing. (The MX 440 cards don't seem to like being OC'd.)

retro games 100 wrote:

If you do decide to get an FX5200 (I personally like them), make sure it's a 128-bit version, not 64-bit. They seem to be able to cope with OC'ing. (The MX 440 cards don't seem to like being OC'd.)

Most don't seem to mention if the memory is 64 or 128-bit... I am currently looking at an "MSI MS-8917" Geforce FX5200 (128mb version) but cannot find memory details!

It may not be 100% reliable, but usually you can count the memory chips... 4 is 64-bit, 8 is 128bit. If in doubt, it's probably 64-bit. Also, if it's worth anything to you, I've never seen a 128-bit low-profile FX5200.

Ok what about a low-profile FX5700LE unless i can find a cheap 6200 (which is also probably 64-bit)

A 64-bit 6200 is not a problem, they're still pretty good performing cards. It's not that 64-bit memory is always a bad thing, it's just a problem on some cards.

I don't know a whole lot about the different variants of the 5700, but a low-profile one is probably going to be pretty cut-down. There's a good chance that a 6200 will beat it overall, and the 6200 will definitely win if you're doing any DX9 stuff.