Can you post some specs of the Dimension 8200 you're talking about? Its also worth mentioning that those systems frequently have bad capacitors.

Ti4200 would be a nice fit.
8200 is usually a 2.4GHz Northwood P4 with 512MB-1GB RDRAM... my parents had one. It came with a Ti4200 so it should work fine.

I believe these originally came with a Geforce 3 Ti 500 as well.

A Radeon HD3650 AGP will also fit nicly 😜

Radeon 9600PRO/XT is the best compromise for that system.

hm i would install at least a 9800 Pro or 6800 Ultra/GT

Spun up the other possible candidate: specs
GA-7ZXE Motherboard
Athlon XP 1800+
512MB PC133
40GB HDD, but I have an 80 and a 400 spare
PSU is Eagle 300W with 30A on the 5V and 13A on the 12V - definitely a 5V generation PSU, even though it proclaims "P4" - the 12V load must currently be minimal as the 12V is a touch high and the 5V a touch low (group regulated)

BIOS has option for SB legacy, only low DMA setting, but I wonder if this might give simple coverage down to "fast DOS system" as well (default is Int 5 & DMA 1).
I hit it with some canned air, but the heatsink fan sounds like an aircraft taking off - small and very high RPM.

Case is cream (yay! retro!) and carries a CD-RW (cream/silver) and a DVD-ROM - I also have a cream DVD-RW spare - don't know if I can fix the power button (stuck in and no click), but the reset button is wired as power (I did that for my friend some time back.

The Dell, I seem to recall was a P4 2.0, with 768MB of RDRAM.

Now I really must download the MB manual to read more about the SB function, and see if there are any NOS Socket A coolers to be found

matze79 wrote:

hm i would install at least a 9800 Pro or 6800 Ultra/GT

It would be hugely bottlenecked on an early AthlonXP/P4 there is no poşnt in investing something sonexpensive; a 9609XT would do the job here.

There's little to none CPU bottleneck with high resolutions and quality AA settings active.

Checked the 8200
Dell motherboard using RDRAM
Pentium 4 Northwood 2.0GHz
768MB RDRAM (2x256 & 2x128)
80GB HDD
PSU - Dell 250W with 13A on 12V - and I'm guessing the P4 DOES draw from that, and I make that nearly 11A just for CPU and a 9800Pro (found a figure of 75W for that)
Can't find a figure for the Ti4200, but it does not require any more than slot power.

Both are PCI/AGP only
The P4 in the Dell has SSE2 - which may be important if I take it up to XP, as the latter end of XP stuff used it, but then, I have a spare LGA775 Prescott that I can do XP with.
The XP1800+ has 3Dnow (was it ever used much?), and the system has, apparently, SB Pro emulation. I've ordered a 60mm and a 70mm FAN (slow boat from China) to see if I can quieten that heatsink - or I pinch the Thermosonic V60 from my other Socket A.

Both systems have a valid XP with them.

I'm going to have to set up a DOS or 98 (DOS 7) on that 1800+ and see if the SB emulation works adequately - probably a long way from OPL3 (or would that be OPL2) quality