Your question as to what would be a fitting DX9 video card entirely depends. If you like to enable very high resolutions (Full-HD or even more) and antialiasing/anisotropic filtering levels, then you will be able to max out almost any DX9 card with only a single GPU like the X1950 XTX which has an AGP version from Gecube. This card is in most cases (i.e. games) a much better choice over the Geforce 7800 GS - except for some canned benchmarks probably.

If you, otoh, run SuperPi and Sandra like in your benchmarks to show the CPU-speed, then you will naturally not benefit at all from a fast video card.

[GPUT]Carsten wrote:

If you, otoh, run SuperPi and Sandra like in your benchmarks to show the CPU-speed, then you will naturally not benefit at all from a fast video card.

The benchmarks with the diffrent DX9 cards are coming 😁 This was just a presentation of the system.
And no, I will not use SuperPi or Sandra as a graphics benchmark...

When it comes to resolution I will not use higher resolution than 1024*768 as I have a HUGE 34" CRT monitor that will not go higher. This monitor will in time be used with all my retro boxes.
I will use 3dmark2000, 3dmark2001 and 3dmark2003 as benchmarks since it is games from this time period (2001-2004) the system is built for.

The first batch of cards.

All ATI cards will use Catalyst 9.3 since I am lazy and it works with all cards.

From left to right.
Radeon 9550 256mb, Radeon 9600 pro 256mb and Radeon 9600 XT 256mb.

ATI Radeon 9550 256 mb 3dmark 2000

ATI Radeon 9550 256 mb 3dmark 2001

ATI Radeon 9550 256 mb 3dmark 2003

ATI Radeon 9600 pro 256 mb 3dmark 2000

ATI Radeon 9600 pro 256 mb 3dmark 2001

ATI Radeon 9600 pro 256 mb 3dmark 2003

ATI Radeon 9600 XT 256 mb 3dmark 2000

ATI Radeon 9600 XT 256 mb 3dmark 2001

ATI Radeon 9600 XT 256 mb 3dmark 2003

The 9600 pro and the 9600 XT bench simular but the 9550 is notably slower

A slight overclock can bring the performance of the 9550 more in line with the other two cards.

Conclusion so far.
These cards are too slow* and I dont have a working 9700 pro or 9800 pro so its time to move on to some newer ATI cards.
*overclocking the CPU gives no benefit in 3dmark 2003 so the GPU is the bottleneck.

I had a 2.6 GHz northwood and a Radeon 9800. It was a pretty well balanced system as far as I remember 😀

Until Farcry and Doom 3 that is 😁

Perhaps OP needs something about ~9000-10000 marks on the 3dmark03, which measures almost directly the VGA and the CPU does not affect so much the score.

As far as I remember, my X1800XT (early pci-e) was ~17000 marks, so maybe a Geforce 6600GT AGP (late 2004) would be the the best choice? 😀

Only one card this time since it is hard to get a good overview of a wall of pictures like in my last post.

The Radeon X800PRO

Radeon X800PRO 3dmark 2000

Radeon X800PRO 3dmark 2001

Radeon X800PRO 3dmark 2003

The Radeon X800PRO is proably fast enough for the games I want to play, at least @ 1024*768 but I will try a faster card to see if things improve further.
And lets not forget the Nvidia cards.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I had a 2.6 GHz northwood and a Radeon 9800. It was a pretty well balanced system as far as I remember 😀

Until Farcry and Doom 3 that is 😁

Yea for a 2.6 ghz northwood the 9800pro must have been a great card!

GeorgeMan wrote:

Perhaps OP needs something about ~9000-10000 marks on the 3dmark03, which measures almost directly the VGA and the CPU does not affect so much the score.

As far as I remember, my X1800XT (early pci-e) was ~17000 marks, so maybe a Geforce 6600GT AGP (late 2004) would be the the best choice? 😀

The only 6600gt I have is a PCI-E card but I have a 7600 GS or GT AGP, I will try that card later.

It really doesn't matter as the X800 Pro sits just perfect. 😁

This card is probably a bit overkill 😁

The X1950PRO

I forgot to reconnect the fan when I put the cooler back on the card... It seems it dosnt need a fan, at least not on the testbench.

X1950PRO 3dmark 2000

X1950PRO 3dmark 2001

X1950PRO 3dmark 2003

The old P4 is keeping up with newer video cards better than I would have thought.

It's useless from one point and on to bench 3dmark2001SE for 3d performance, as the score increases more from CPU overclock 😜
On the other side, 3dmark03 is MORE GPU dependant than most real world games, so it also doesn't show the reality.

Try some real world games...

I will not forget the time Colin McRae Dirt v1.0 came out.
At that time, I had an Athlon64 3500+ w/ X1800XT. It was playable (~25fps) at the LOWEST possible settings @ 800x600! I eventually changed CPU/VGA/Mobo/RAM set for this game, and one month later came out the v1.1 patch which greatly improved frame rate... Damn u Codemasters xD

I use NFS Underground 2 as my game test.
I dont have time to test all cards with more than one game 😁
But the X1950PRO is the card that has been on the test bench the last couple of days when I have been playing games instead of running benchmarks 😀 . It can run every game I try with max settings @ 1024*768. (without the fan connected 😜 )
But that would probaby also be true for the X800PRO. I will switch back to that card when I am done testing the Nvidia cards since this was the card I had in mind for this rig from the start.
I have two identical X800PRO so it would be great if it was fast enough for everything.

The fan has some meaning for being there. Better have it connected 😜
Then it's not worth all the rush. Just install any games you want and try them for a couple of minutes on both cards. 😁

I noticed that the fan wasnt connected when I removed the card from the test bench, its connected now.

There are some more things I want to get out of this other than just to decide what card I will use for this box. 😀
Im also checking that all my old AGP DX9 cards are still working. Some of the cards have not been used for a long long time, some cards I have never used before.
That the X800PRO will be the card I end up using with this build is almost for certain since it will make it easy to compare performance with the Barton box I will build later with the other X800PRO.
Im pretty sure though that this is the system I acually will use for playing games since the Barton will have to be clocked to crazy speeds to keep up, or so I believe.
Time..*cough* benchmarks will tell.

X800/X850 were a tremendous leap from the 9800XT and they handle high levels of AA and AF better than GeForce 6. The only downside is that there are not ATi drivers for Windows 98. GeForce 6 does have driver support for Windows 98.

sliderider wrote:

X800/X850 were a tremendous leap from the 9800XT and they handle high levels of AA and AF better than GeForce 6. The only downside is that there are not ATi drivers for Windows 98. GeForce 6 does have driver support for Windows 98.

I have an Abit BH6 Coppermine box with a Gf-3 for Windows 98 games so it will not be an issue.
I am benching the Nvidia cards as I am writing this, the 6800GT is next in line!
I think that card will end up in a Canterwood build.

In the end Im sure that I will have more systems than I will ever use but its better to have systems than componets laying around... everywhere...
Building the first retro boxes made me sort through some of the things I have collected over the years...
When you are the go to person people consult when they need help with upgrades... things tend to accumulate.

As a long time user of ATi Radeon X850 PE Agp and WinME...
1) There is an official Win9x support through the standard Catalyst driver pack. The last version with Win9x support is 6.2.
2) Still the card/drivers are bugged with standard ATi failures. Like a wrong negative blending, a table fog "support" etc...
3) The drivers aren't working with HT=on (freezing), you must disable the hyperthreading in BIOS.

I have used this card in the test PC for the nGlide Win9x compatibility table. Unfortunatedly this card have died from soldering troubles...

Time for some Nvidia Cards
All Nvidia cards will use ForceWare 92.91

The Geforce 5600 Ultra 128 mb

Geforce 5600 Ultra 3dmark 2000 (Ignore GPU-Z reporting the memory running at half speed)

Geforce 5600 Ultra 3dmark 2001

Geforce 5600 Ultra 3dmark 2003

I bet Nvidia wasnt satisfied with the performance of this card.

This card I really like. Its one of the best looking cards ever.

Asus V9950Ultra / Geforce 5900 Ultra 256 mb

Geforce 5900 Ultra 3dmark 2000

Geforce 5900 Ultra 3dmark 2001

Geforce 5900 Ultra 3dmark 2003

DX9 performance could have been better but this card is a good candidate for an overkill windows 98 build.

I used this card for a long time.
I quit my job and moved to another town 2004, then World of Warcraft was released and I kind of played World of Warcraft for a couple of years instead of working or studying.
This card was flashed with a Geforce 6800 Ultra bios and was rendering 3D probably ~12 hours a day for 3 years.
My gaming rig at the time was a s939 Nforce-3 Athlon 64 box that got upgraded with a dual core Opteron.
Now the card wont run at that speed without issues so I flashed it with the original bios. The overclocking adventures is over for this card.

XFX Geforce 6800GT hiding under a NV5 Silencer.

Geforce 6800GT 3dmark 2000

Geforce 6800GT 3dmark 2001

Geforce 6800GT 3dmark 2003

Good performance and a huge step up from the 5900 ultra.

The last card, its not even faster than the 6800gt but its a mid range card from the next generation.

Geforce 7600GS with a custom quiet fan

Geforce 7600GS 3dmark 2000

Geforce 7600GS 3dmark 2001

Geforce 7600GS 3dmark 2003

Not as fast as the 6800GT but overclocking helps

Geforce 7600GS slightly overclocked 3dmark 2003

Another good DX9 AGP card