AlexZ wrote on 2022-05-26, 15:21:

45.23 driver is recommended for Windows 98 as it's more compatible than 53.04. I tested various drivers and settled with 45.23 in the end.

Yes I know. I tried 53.04 because 45.23 was not working with the FX 5200, but now I know it was because of the graphics card itself. I'll revert to those once every cap is replaced and I reinstall everything from scratch. In Windows 2000 I might keep then 53.04 because they include WDM drivers for video capture, and I'd like to play around with that.

For now all I could find locally were electrolytic caps, probably not even a known brand, but they're cheap as hell, less than 5 euros for 14 caps for both cards (2 extra caps just in case). I'm not going to replace the Sanyo cap for now since it's the only branded one. I'll start with the FX 5200 over the weekend and if everything goes well, I'll do the same to the FX 5600. I'm still interested in comparing them with some games' benchmarks, just like Phil usually does 😉

FX 5200s are so cheap and plentiful they are not worth recapping. They are only good for practice so you don't mess up the FX 5600.

The one time I went with no name replacement capacitors on a video card it did not turn out well.

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

AlexZ wrote on 2022-05-26, 17:46:

FX 5200s are so cheap and plentiful they are not worth recapping.

Only a matter of time before they are 😋

The caps I bought are Samwha RD and they are general caps, not low ESR, so I'm only going to use them on the FX 5200 for now for testing and practice, later I'll get better/correct ones for the FX 5600 and probably for the FX 5200 and some motherboards / PSUs I've been wanting to recap.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-26, 19:53:

AlexZ wrote on 2022-05-26, 17:46:

FX 5200s are so cheap and plentiful they are not worth recapping.

Only a matter of time before they are 😋

For some, it's a lot of time. TVGA8900D, Trio64V and TNT2-M64 AGP are older and still disposable.

I managed to replace the 3 bulged caps of the FX 5200, they're crappy caps but I'll replace them eventually. It took longer than I expected, so either my soldering skills suck, or the hardware I'm using sucks, but I put my money on both 😀

The card is now working and I finally ran the Benchmarks, so to "recap" (pun intended):

FX 5200
3DMark 99 Max: 7456 (34385 CPU 3DMarks)
3DMark 2000: 6016
3DMark 2001 SE: 4505

FX 5600
3DMark 99 Max: 7481 (34153 CPU 3DMarks)
3DMark 2000: 10081
3DMark 2001 SE: 9042

Both cards perform closely for DX6, but the FX5600 blows the FX5200 out of the water in DX7 and DX8 performance, so I'm completely satisfied with the purchase.

I read some posts of the "A tale of two PSUs" topic (very good info by the way), and thanks to TELVM I'll focus my search on capacitors from Chemicon, Nichicon, Panasonic, Samxon, Sanyo or Rubycon. I'll make a list of the hardware that needs recapping and buy a bunch of caps so I can (hopefully) improve my soldering skills. Thank you all for your very helpful input.

Next step: catalog every PSU I have to weed out the crap, which will probably be 90% or more...

Great little board, glad it worked out for you.

Your card is a regular FX5600, also . You can verify using GPU-Z. It's definitely 128 bit, and the memory probably runs at 500Mhz witch is pretty much standard for a non-ultra 5600.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-05-27, 03:41:

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-26, 19:53:

AlexZ wrote on 2022-05-26, 17:46:

FX 5200s are so cheap and plentiful they are not worth recapping.

Only a matter of time before they are 😋

For some, it's a lot of time. TVGA8900D, Trio64V and TNT2-M64 AGP are older and still disposable.

Kinda true, I prefer the term 'affordable'. A good thing as well though, as it keeps the hobby more affordable even though those cards may not be the fastest. But even so Trio64 and TNT2 M64 also have relatively good compatibility (I don't know about the TVGA8900D).

It's same for the Trident. Alright speed and compatibility for a low price. Affordable is indeed a prettier word.