For a P3-866 running ME, I would recommend a GF4 Ti4600. You may have to do a little hunting to find one for less than $30, but you can probably get a GF4 Ti4400 for less than that. The GF4 Ti4600 is a classic card and my favorite GF. You have to be careful because it is easy to mistake a Ti4400 for a Ti4600.

Ti4600 is a great card.

If you really want a MX440 I would really recommend a Quadro4 380 XGL instead. They only come in one configuration so no gimped models, and the build quality is high. Just use the same drivers you would with the MX440 series.

On the Radeon side if you find a Radeon 9550 those seem to be pretty good and the equivalent of a FX5600 or so, and cheap as the fx5200 cards. I used one for awhile and liked it at least for what it was 😀

squareguy wrote:

If you really want a MX440 I would really recommend a Quadro4 380 XGL instead. They only come in one configuration so no gimped models, and the build quality is high. Just use the same drivers you would with the MX440 series.

Quadros are a nice solution if you are looking for something inexpensive but nice quality. Quadros are basically industrial versions of the retail GF models. For example, the Quadro DCC is basically a GF 3. It is a tiny bit slower than the GF 3. The Quadro DCC/GF3 will be a better performer than the MX440, I believe. This Quadro DCC is only $10 and is a nice value if it is in working condition:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/nVIDIA-GF3-Quadro-64M … 7-/152243493214

ElementalChaos wrote:

Everywhere I've read I've been told the FX 5200 is inferior to the MX440

I had heard they were pretty much the same, except that the 5200 supported a couple of newer features. In any case both of them are really resoundingly crappy cards and there is no need to stick with them when something like the aforementioned Ti4600 is readily available and relatively inexpensive. They might both be called "Geforce 4", but that is just an early example of a horrifically misleading marketing gimmick.

Aww man, it was mislabelled AND it didn't work? Bummer. 🙁 If I had known I would have suggested something else. Not that there was much there that was worthwhile...

The thing with the MX440 is it's the (second) most powerful Nvidia DX7 card. AFAICR from a few threads on here, Geforce 3 and later can cause problems with certain 95- and 98-era 3D games. Searching now though, I can't find anything conclusive, so I dunno.

If you're still set on a MX440, I'd either look for a Quadro4 380XGL like squareguy said or a MX440-8X. They're slightly newer and slightly faster than the vanilla one. Gpureview has a list of cards that shows which have non-standard clocks and memory width, but it's by no means comprehensive. Otherwise yeah, just go with a GF3/4Ti

Id go for a Geforce 3 or 4ti series card youd be able to run some directx 8 games like Max Payne, the horsepower would help none the less.

The 5200 is by no means inferior to the mx440, but it's not very appropriate for a p3 rig.

For a P3 i would recommend a Geforce 3 or Geforce 4 Ti 4200 - form the red team a Radeon 8500 or 9500/9700 would do great.

The Ti4600 is a great card but a P3 can't take advantage of it. It will benchmark like a ti4200 on your machine, and the 4200 is easier to find and cheaper. To truly take advantage of a 4600 you need a fast p4 or athlon XP.

FYI : GF MX440 does not support DirectX 8 and later (on a hardware level).
Basicly : MX440 is an overclocked GF2 MX (2x ROPs + 4x TMUs), with DDR VRAM and 128-bit memory bus.
So, anything that requires Shader Model 1.x will not work on it.

agent_x007 wrote:

FYI : GF MX440 does not support DirectX 8 and later (on a hardware level).
Basicly : MX440 is an overclocked GF2 MX (2x ROPs + 4x TMUs), with DDR VRAM and 128-bit memory bus.
So, anything that requires Shader Model 1.x will not work on it.

GF4MX also added support for NVidia's Twinview solution, so it was much more attractive for business users than the previous MX cards.

agent_x007 wrote:

FYI : GF MX440 does not support DirectX 8 and later (on a hardware level).
Basicly : MX440 is an overclocked GF2 MX (2x ROPs + 4x TMUs), with DDR VRAM and 128-bit memory bus.
So, anything that requires Shader Model 1.x will not work on it.

Besides higher clocks the GeForce4 MX series also had a new memory architecture and included the newest anti-aliasing tech. Otherwise they had GeForce2 derived features, which makes the top models some of the best DX7 cards ever made. One thing Nvidia's DX8+ offerings no longer had was adjustable texel alignment that fixed bugs in some games. For many things the additional power of the GF3/GF4/GFFX series comes in handy, but it depends on exactly what you want out of the build.

Okay. I went ahead and ordered an tested MSI GF4 TI4400 off eBay. I did also see an Asus TI4600 for cheap during my search, but seeing as it's untested and "as-is" with no refunds, I didn't want to take the risk after my FX 5200 incident. If anyone here is willing to take the plunge then here it is.

Yeah I assume things being sold as-is are junk.

I picked up a super cheap 4600 a couple of years ago. It was damaged though, only working at AGP 1x. But I found a burned up trace and managed to repair it. My guess is it had been installed improperly, come partly out of the AGP slot and it shorted. This can vaporize traces.

swaaye wrote:

Yeah I assume things being sold as-is are junk.

Same here, especially so when it comes with a non return policy, and a statement that it's untested, no matter how simple those tests would be to conduct. Assuming that he tells us the truth, he could at least have plugged it in, and check whether it posts or not. Personally I think it's more probable he tested it unsuccessfully, and now tries to sell it as untested in as-is condition.

swaaye wrote:

I picked up a super cheap 4600 a couple of years ago. It was damaged though, only working at AGP 1x. But I found a burned up trace and managed to repair it. My guess is it had been installed improperly, come partly out of the AGP slot and it shorted. This can vaporize traces.

That's interesting. Got what I believe is a reference Ti4600 in my Athlon rig, also only working at AGP 1x mode according to CPU-z. Always assumed it was some bug in CPU-z itself, a chipset related problem - the KT133A got its fair share of those - or maybe just a question of configuration. Never occurred to me that it could be a hardware problem. Good call, gonna check it out.