The GeForce FX 5600 Ultra should be "the best" (but make sure that it is, in fact, an "Ultra"):
- generally faster than both the Ti 4600 and FX 5700 in Win98 titles (although, depending on the game and settings, it won't always be faster than the Ti 4600, - since it only has 4 TMUs, compared to the 8 that the Ti 4600 has).
- will run cooler than the Ti 4600
- has an external power connector
- last but not least, it works with driver version 45.23 (which is much more compatible and faster than the 5x.xx series). The 5700 is NV36 and last time I checked it refused to work with Detonator 45.23.

Btw, your FX 5500 also works with driver version 45.23 but you need to force the installation for another card (like the FX5200).

My suggestion would be to forget about the Ti 4600, FX 5600 Ultra, and go with a Ti 4200 (it can still be found for a decent price, it's usually very overclockable and for all intents and purposes almost as fast as the Ti 4600).

AGP8X/4X doesn't matter, these cards barely saturate an AGP 2X interface.

Btw, your FX 5500 also works with driver version 45.23 but you need to force the installation for the FX5200.

I tried that, but it wasn't stable for me; every time I attempted to run dxdiag the computer would black screen and freeze.

I'll keep my eye out for a 5600 Ultra, thanks for the info.

Edit: I see you edited your post to recommend the Ti 4200 instead. If I can find one for a fraction of the price of a Ti 4600 or FX 5600 Ultra, then I will consider it.

I've had good results overclocking a FX5500, stock 270/400 overclocked to 310/500, which puts it into FX5600 territory. The next step up would be the cards you're considering and for the performance gain I don't think they're worth the price. My system is similar to yours, an underclocked/undervolted barton 2800, ~1800?/1.45V running 98SE and 45.23 drivers. I play Morrowind comfortably at 1280x960 with shaders on and AA/AF off, then exchange the FX5500 for a FX5900U for kicks, which I then enable AA/AF with, it's smoother but overall the performance of the FX5500 OC is similar.

Maybe for the price, go big with a FX5900 XT or U, might be a better investment?

45.23 is definitely the way to go in Windows 98 and that rules out FX5700. Don't waste your time with 5x.xx drivers, they are not as compatible and you will encounter issues in DX6 games. This also means GeForce FX 5500 must be installed using modified 45.23 driver where you should copy NVIDIA&DEV_0322 entry into NVIDIA&DEV_0326 as they have different DeviceId although chip is the same.

retroboy87 wrote on 2022-06-07, 04:08:

Assuming they're the same price, which is the better choice for a 2002/03 late era 98SE DX8.1/DOS machine?
I'm currently running an FX 5500 on the 56.64 driver with a Duron 1800 and 512MB PC133 SDRAM.
My motherboard (Azza KT3-AV) only supports AGP up to 4x (I chose ISA over AGP 8x), so a card supporting AGP 8x has no influence in my decision.

You said DX8.1, so I'm assuming you won't be playing DX9 games. The FX series suck at DX9 anyways. The 5600 Ultra was no faster than my Ti4800SE back in the day, so I ended up selling the 5600 Ultra to a friend and keeping the Ti4800SE, as I pretty much played Quake III exclusively and the Ti4800Se was slightly faster in that game. I can't comment on the FX5700 because I never owned one, but as I understand it, they are somewhere between an FX5900XT and an FX5600 Ultra. That means - given the Ti 4600 is about 10-15% faster than the Ti4800SE (which is itself just a Ti4400 with AGP 8x support), I'd imagine the FX5700 and Ti4600 will perform pretty much identical in DX8.1 titles.

If you were going to go DX9 with that Duron build, a 9600pro or 9700 would be a far better choice than an FX5700. But with the pricing of the 9700Pro and 9800Pro being a bit high, an X800GT would be a better choice again - more performance and much better value. But then you're getting beyond where you were aiming in the beginning.

The Ti4600's are also very rare and very expensive, and not that much faster than the Ti4400's or Ti4800SE's, both of which can be overclocked to come within a few fps of the Ti4600. Even a Ti4200, once overclocked, can be near as dammit. There always seems to be Ti4200's readily available on eBay too.

Personally, I'd go with a Ti4400. They are very fast DX8.1 cards and handled everything from that era, such as RTCW and Morrowind, exceptionally well.

If you're interested I have some cards listed on eBay right now. Off the top of my head, got a Ti4800SE (Gainward), some Ti4200's, an FX5700 and an FX5600 XT. No Ti4600's though. If you haven't found what you're looking for let me know and we can work something out, as a Vogons member, you can have "special deal".

Ti 4600 is usually considerably faster than a 5600 Ultra, especially if the 5600 Ultra is the original 350 MHz version. A Ti 4200 is comparable.

5700 Ultra is an improvement but eh it's not exactly night and day.

You really want to find anything 5900. They put some of these into the midrange as 5900 XT and ZT.

Though all of them are historically interesting and fun to play with.