Is there really any use for a PCI card anymore? What systems would need such a card?

F2bnp wrote:

Is there really any use for a PCI card anymore? What systems would need such a card?

Schabby OEM computers with integrated graphics and no PCI-E/AGP slots.

Do these still exist? I mean seriously? No PCI-E or AGP at all? What kind of processor/RAM do these things have?

A lot of Pentium 4 Dell computers I've fixed for friends had crappy onboard video. The only expansion options they had were 2 PCI slots. That's it.

let's see those am5x86 160 3dbench scores.

Jan3Sobieski wrote:

A lot of Pentium 4 Dell computers I've fixed for friends had crappy onboard video. The only expansion options they had were 2 PCI slots. That's it.

Sure but a GT 520 on a Pentium 4? It's a lot more than an overkill 😜

I wonder if it'll make Quake run any faster on a 486...

no it won't. quake is bottlenecked by floating point calculation of time and surfmip blocks (dynamic lighting), a video card can't change that story for one

Is it faster than a 9500GT? That's currently the fastest card ever released in PCI, at least to my knowledge. There is a HD5450 in PCI, but that is slower than the 9500GT even though it does have a newer feature set.

Edit: It looks like by comparing PCIe to PCIe that 9500GT is still the faster chip, at least on paper. The GT 520 is still a lot faster than the HD5450, though.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=650&card2=574

An example of where this could be useful, at least for me, is the small formfactor Compaq Pentium III box I have. If I had some cash to spare, I could pick that up along with a blue ray player and install them then plug the thing into my TV. While it wouldn't be as graceful as a dedicated bluray player, it might be cheaper and it'd be more versatile. Get a capture card to go with it and I've got a poor-man's all in one DVR solution.

Also might be decent for one of the many Opteron and other relatively powerful systems made last decade that were stuck with a motherboard lacking AGP slot due to their original intended role as a server.

The card should also be able to provide hardware acceleration for Flash and other various softwares that now use the GPU despite having nothing 3D (Firefox, etc). Basically, in theory, the card should be able to add sufficient multimedia ability to a decade or less old computer that it can be somewhat useful for more than old games or word processing again. It might also catch on in educational institutions and government offices where you have a ton of aging and obsolete computers but not the resources to replace them.

GXL750 wrote:

An example of where this could be useful, at least for me, is the small formfactor Compaq Pentium III box I have. If I had some cash to spare, I could pick that up along with a blue ray player and install them then plug the thing into my TV. While it wouldn't be as graceful as a dedicated bluray player, it might be cheaper and it'd be more versatile. Get a capture card to go with it and I've got a poor-man's all in one DVR solution.

Also might be decent for one of the many Opteron and other relatively powerful systems made last decade that were stuck with a motherboard lacking AGP slot due to their original intended role as a server.

The card should also be able to provide hardware acceleration for Flash and other various softwares that now use the GPU despite having nothing 3D (Firefox, etc). Basically, in theory, the card should be able to add sufficient multimedia ability to a decade or less old computer that it can be somewhat useful for more than old games or word processing again. It might also catch on in educational institutions and government offices where you have a ton of aging and obsolete computers but not the resources to replace them.

That's assuming you're running a recent OS in that P-III box. I can't see there ever being a Win9x/ME driver unless someone decides to write their own.

The Pentium III is plenty sufficient for Windows XP which, for a slew of ungodly reasons, is still regarded as a current OS.

F2bnp wrote:

Do these still exist? I mean seriously? No PCI-E or AGP at all? What kind of processor/RAM do these things have?

I can see many of the OEM's building micro-ATX boards with only PCI and/or PCIe x1 slots, this means no dedicated GPU support as you need a PCIe x16 slot for that 😉

It would still have current standard CPU's and DDR3 ram slots, most likley only 2 of these slots and a max ram support of 8GB.

Question for you guys. Would this card work in really old computers with PCI slots? Lets say a 486 or Pentium?

Or are there potential issues like not having the right voltage and things like that?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Question for you guys. Would this card work in really old computers with PCI slots? Lets say a 486 or Pentium?

Or are there potential issues like not having the right voltage and things like that?

It would most likely not work due to the PCI v2.xx or higher requirment for 3.3v signaling.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Question for you guys. Would this card work in really old computers with PCI slots? Lets say a 486 or Pentium?

Or are there potential issues like not having the right voltage and things like that?

You wouldn't be able to get a driver for a 486 because they can't run XP unless you want to write your own driver and you wouldn't want to run XP on a Pentium because it would be too slow so even if there weren't electrical constraints preventing it, it wouldn't be practical. .

I'm mostly thinking of the DVI / HDMI output under DOS. Not sure if this will work however...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16814500221

they are good for phys-x when all other slots are occupied.

Why? Why did they release a GT 520 PCI card? Why? Why?.... Will it work with my 486 with PCI slots? If not, why? 🤣

Now I've seen everything.