I have an Optiplex 170L and I want to know if there is a PCI graphics card that is better than the one it has integrated, at the moment I am planning to put Windows XP on it, but I don't know if it is better to put 98 on it, what do you think?
Hello, welcome to the forum.
XP is a good choice for a system. 98 is kind of pointless unless you have a Sound Blaster compatible sound card.
About the video card, the PCI bus limits you a lot, but there are newer PCI cards (ati/radeon or nvidia) that would perform much faster. They are not as common/easy to get as AGP cards. Try to look for one with a 128-bit bus.
If your budget stretches to it a Chinese FX5500 off ebay. But only because I dont know if you can get a Radeo 9550 on the PCI bus.
Otherwise there is the FX5200 or Radeon 9200, both of which you can get as PCI bus cards.
A machine like that I tend to see as a fast 98 system rather than a slow xp.
There are other better options for XP now. And theyre cheap at the minute because nobody seems to see then as XP gaming PCs yet. (give it a year or two and that will change)
Get either the Nvidia FX 5200 or Radeon 9200.
