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".
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