Nice score on finding the 2gb DDR stick! 1gb pieces are rare enough. As far as I know the fx5200 is dx9 capable but has sub-par gaming performance in games that utilize dx9. My next door neighbor upgraded from a Geforce4 ti4200 to a fx5600 and saw a general decrease in framerates in games but the trade off for dx9 compatibility was worthwhile to him back then. Overall an interesting change up to your p4 and 2.5gb of ram is awesome to have for xp!

Thanks. As for the OS,I'm using Vista Home Premium, since I'm using the P4M800 chipset,which is a lot faster than the ol' 865PE P4P800-VM.

Still,need to change the BIOS' PCI registers so I can use the PCI slots.

Very neat to see 2.5GB in such a system - 2GB DIMMs are somewhat a rarity these days. Are you planning to use this as a gaming machine? Or just a general purpose browse-the-web-and-send-email kind of box?

On the FX: The FX 5200, like all GeForce FX cards, is SM2.0a/DX9a compatible. It should support Aero if it has enough memory, at least under Vista (nVidia does not have official Windows 7/8 drivers for GeForce FX, but they do for Vista). That said, it is one of the slowest DX9 cards ever made (being the entry-level offering from the FX series). Expect performance to be in-line with a GeForce MX, but with the added PS functionality that MX lacks (which is usable in some games, albeit generally at lower resolutions). They also generally have the advantage of being passively cooled, unlike many of their FX siblings and later DX9 compatible parts.

On the boards being similar - I know that ASRock was once a subsidiary/component of Asus, so that might be a factor.

obobskivich wrote:

Very neat to see 2.5GB in such a system - 2GB DIMMs are somewhat a rarity these days. Are you planning to use this as a gaming machine? Or just a general purpose browse-the-web-and-send-email kind of box?

Probably light gaming (CS 1.6,GTA San Andreas and 2005 games)is what it will be targeted to.

obobskivich wrote:

On the FX: The FX 5200, like all GeForce FX cards, is SM2.0a/DX9a compatible. It should support Aero if it has enough memory, at least under Vista (nVidia does not have official Windows 7/8 drivers for GeForce FX, but they do for Vista). That said, it is one of the slowest DX9 cards ever made (being the entry-level offering from the FX series). Expect performance to be in-line with a GeForce MX, but with the added PS functionality that MX lacks (which is usable in some games, albeit generally at lower resolutions). They also generally have the advantage of being passively cooled, unlike many of their FX siblings and later DX9 compatible parts.

I don't really see them being cool at all. I have the Palit/MSI FX5200 in this PC and after a 2-3 hours of use it was hot. (I'd estimate around 55-60*C)

obobskivich wrote:

On the boards being similar - I know that ASRock was once a subsidiary/component of Asus, so that might be a factor.

Of course. The P4VM800 seems to be actually a rebranded P4V8X-MX anyways.

Back to it: I've got the MSI PM8M3-V BIOS to work,however I'm facing a problem : my PCI RTL8139D NIC seems to not work correctly under Windows. It's detected,it works fine,but it shows cable unplugged,even though I have the cable plugged.

PcBytes wrote:

Probably light gaming (CS 1.6,GTA San Andreas and 2005 games)is what it will be targeted to.

"2005 games" may be a problem with the FX. They don't do very well with DX9 titles, especially the lower-performance models like the 5200. CS1.6 or other old titles should be no problem at all, but games like Half-Life 2, Hitman 4, etc will generally be beyond that card's reach. Something like a GeForce 6600GT would be a much better choice for DX9 titles.

I don't really see them being cool at all. I have the Palit/MSI FX5200 in this PC and after a 2-3 hours of use it was hot. (I'd estimate around 55-60*C)
.

55-60* C is not bad at all for a graphics card under heavy load, especially a single-slot one without a fan. Consider the 5200's big brother, the 5800 Ultra, will run 60-70* C under load (like 3DMark), with the large dual-slot blower. The 5900XT and 5700 Ultra will run similar temperatures. Some more modern cards will approach 100* C during normal operation, even with large dual or triple slot coolers (many of which make the 5800's Flow FX look tame by comparison).

With the 5200, you could put a massively over-sized cooler on it (like a VF700) and bring the temperatures down (unfortunately 5200 lacks an actual diode, so you can't measure internal temp), but it isn't necessary, and since they run passively it wouldn't benefit you (it'll just add noise, basically).

san andreas will play at high on an fx5200 and Athlon XP on windows 7 @1024x768 possibly 2084x1024

2084x1024? will play? fx5200? funny shit

iv'e got an athlon xp and Pentium 4 setup i can test with my 128mb FX5200 with, weather or not i get around to it is another story.

cdoublejj wrote:

iv'e got an athlon xp and Pentium 4 setup i can test with my 128mb FX5200 with, weather or not i get around to it is another story.

Nice. Wonder if a FX5200 can run 1920x1200 though. It's a bit smaller.

PcBytes wrote:

Nice. Wonder if a FX5200 can run 1920x1200 though. It's a bit smaller.

On VGA it should (it can do 2048x1536 on VGA), but on DVI it may not as the FX cards are all single-link, and some will only do 1600x1200 (vs 1920x1200). No idea if it will be playable game performance in anything at 1920x1200 or 2048x1536 etc (remember, it's not too far off from an MX 440), but for kicking out Windows desktop it should be fine.

cdoublejj wrote:

san andreas will play at high on an fx5200 and Athlon XP on windows 7 @1024x768 possibly 2084x1024

It choked already on my old 8800GTX @ 1440x900. 😒

obobskivich wrote:

With the 5200, you could put a massively over-sized cooler on it (like a VF700) and bring the temperatures down (unfortunately 5200 lacks an actual diode, so you can't measure internal temp), but it isn't necessary, and since they run passively it wouldn't benefit you (it'll just add noise, basically).

Yeah, the cooler ten times the price of the videocard. Fx5200 is a crappy card, I don't even bother keeping them. Just get over it, find yourself a nice radeon 9550 or 9600Pro, available for dirt cheap or free if you look well.

filipetolhuizen wrote:

cdoublejj wrote:

san andreas will play at high on an fx5200 and Athlon XP on windows 7 @1024x768 possibly 2084x1024

It choked already on my old 8800GTX @ 1440x900. 😒

Must've been a weak CPU holding it back. San Andreas is not a very GPU intensive game. I ran it at 1920x1200 on an Athlon X2-4600 with an x1950Pro back in the day. I even had to limit the game to use just a single CPU core; it actually ran too fast on both cores!

Now GTA IV is a completely different animal.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

filipetolhuizen wrote:

cdoublejj wrote:

san andreas will play at high on an fx5200 and Athlon XP on windows 7 @1024x768 possibly 2084x1024

It choked already on my old 8800GTX @ 1440x900. 😒

Must've been a weak CPU holding it back. San Andreas is not a very GPU intensive game. I ran it at 1920x1200 on an Athlon X2-4600 with an x1950Pro back in the day. I even had to limit the game to use just a single CPU core; it actually ran too fast on both cores!

Now GTA IV is a completely different animal.

It was a Core2 Quad Q9650 3.0GHz. The hicups got better with a GTX 260 and went completely away with a GTX 460. The CPU stayed the same.

GTA 3 runs like crap, it's poorly optimized, it is the first iteration of the RenderWare engine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_III

GTA VC is the second RenderWare GTA and is so optimized i can get 25-30fps on a 16mb Geforce 2 go, which is impressive when you see the system reqs,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_Vice_City

GTA SAN AN is the third iteration of RenderWare but, is also heavily modified, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_San_Andreas

like wise GTA IV is the first GTA series game to use RAGE and GTA V being the second.

Update on the P4:

Woohoo!Just found a new case for it in the dumpster. Face is a bit cracked but I think it can be fixed in the future.
It even has a backplate installed.

And obiviously,there's as much dust as there is in a unopened CRT TV. (long story short it's veeeeery dusty)
However,anybody knows the pinout of the USB header on the motherboard?

PcBytes wrote:

Update on the P4: […]
Show full quote

Update on the P4:

Woohoo!Just found a new case for it in the dumpster. Face is a bit cracked but I think it can be fixed in the future.
It even has a backplate installed.

And obiviously,there's as much dust as there is in a unopened CRT TV. (long story short it's veeeeery dusty)
However,anybody knows the pinout of the USB header on the motherboard?

Good that you got a better case, you can find pin outs for usb board headers online but personally if the cable from the case is in lose pins I don't bother.

nforce4max wrote:

Good that you got a better case, you can find pin outs for usb board headers online but personally if the cable from the case is in lose pins I don't bother.

Same 🤣

nforce4max wrote:

PcBytes wrote:

Update on the P4: […]
Show full quote

Update on the P4:

Woohoo!Just found a new case for it in the dumpster. Face is a bit cracked but I think it can be fixed in the future.
It even has a backplate installed.

And obiviously,there's as much dust as there is in a unopened CRT TV. (long story short it's veeeeery dusty)
However,anybody knows the pinout of the USB header on the motherboard?

Good that you got a better case, you can find pin outs for usb board headers online but personally if the cable from the case is in lose pins I don't bother.

Just found the pinout,and it works.

Going to take some shots of the case later.