Best or fastest ?

Fastest would be a GTX 970, best would be something from 2006 -2010, if its a 775 board then you could grab anything from that era if you wanted period correct, a nice HD4000/HD5000 or HD6000 series Radeon or a 7950GTX, 8800GTX, GTX200 series card or GTX 400 series. Fermi isn't the best since it runs like a furnace, I run a pair of GTX295's myself but XP cant do quad SLI so even one GTX295 could smash any game from that era no issue, if I go AMD I run a pair of Radeon HD 4890's in Xfire or a HD5970.

Another option if you dont mind something a little newer is a nice GTX580, its Fermi redux so it does run hot but itll smash any game released till about 2016.

In the end its really what you are wanting to do with the PC that will determine what GPU you use for it and many of us here have multiple different GPUs/CPUs/hardware for our machines that we swap in and out if we are after different things.

TrashPanda wrote:

Fermi isn't the best since it runs like a furnace

Original GTX200 series also runs like a furnace. Doesn't matter much though, because Tesla and Fermi high-end cards can be easily be undervolted and downclocked.

retrogamerguy1997 wrote:

I have a P4 HT 640, 2GB, DRR2 RAM, and a 400W power supply (no 6-pin connectors)

With such PSU, you can put there GeForce 8800GT/8800GTS (512 Mb or 1 Gb versions) or preferably GeForce 9800GT ECO edition (with reduced power consumption and without 6-pin connector). Options mentioned above require better power supply and usually don't do well without at least dual core CPU, due to driver overhead.

Which way is it going, forwards, backwards or staying nailed to 2005?

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-01-27, 02:32:

Original GTX200 series also runs like a furnace. Doesn't matter much though, because Tesla and Fermi high-end cards can be easil […]
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TrashPanda wrote:

Fermi isn't the best since it runs like a furnace

Original GTX200 series also runs like a furnace. Doesn't matter much though, because Tesla and Fermi high-end cards can be easily be undervolted and downclocked.

retrogamerguy1997 wrote:

I have a P4 HT 640, 2GB, DRR2 RAM, and a 400W power supply (no 6-pin connectors)

With such PSU, you can put there GeForce 8800GT/8800GTS (512 Mb or 1 Gb versions) or preferably GeForce 9800GT ECO edition (with reduced power consumption and without 6-pin connector). Options mentioned above require better power supply and usually don't do well without at least dual core CPU, due to driver overhead.

GTX 400 series are pretty dang toasty and put most household space heaters to shame, even nVidia was ashamed of that generation and went and remade it as the 500 series which were better but still ran hot. Even undervolted and downclocked a GTX480 is still runs as hot as a GTX580, perhaps skipping the 400 series for the 500 series would be a better option.

Even undervolted and downclocked a GTX480 is still runs as hot as a GTX580

No, they are practically identical chips. Latter was overall better binned (all cores active, decreased default voltage), due to improved chips yields after year of manufacturing on new lithography, and implemented some TDP limitations to protect it from anomalous power consumption scenarios (FurMark, etc). Didn't helped with infamous GTX590 exploding event though, because driver bug broke aforementioned limiter.

I had forgotten all about the GTX 590, dont even know anyone who owned one.

9800GT ECO sounds good to me.

And there's already one furnace in this computer, so if it had the PSU, why *not* add another? 😉

happycube wrote on 2022-01-27, 03:17:

9800GT ECO sounds good to me.

And there's already one furnace in this computer, so if it had the PSU, why *not* add another? 😉

The presshot is presently being hot.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-27, 02:32:

Which way is it going, forwards, backwards or staying nailed to 2005?

I think this is a good question, one that's necessary to consider when you choose your graphics card.

My guess is you're NOT building a high end Windows 98 PC (Hyperthreading isn't helpful for 9x, you've got more RAM than necessary, and PCIe isn't ideal) .

For Windows XP your CPU is decent but not "overkill" so it's probably not worth it to go overkill on the graphics card either. As others have mentioned, newer graphics cards used drivers that are relatively CPU intensive. So a ridiculously fast/new graphics card (GeForce 780) might be counterproductive.

I will suggest that a modest graphics card with a single 6-pin power connector might still be worth considering. You could use a molex to 6-pin adapter. These are can safe to use (if your power supply isn't horrible, if you're not using a ton of hard drives, if your graphics card doesn't draw more power than a molex is designed to handle). So something like a Radeon 4770 or a GeForce 650 could work.

The Prescott is not very good. Considering it's speed, I think the 7800GS or 8600GTS. I'd expect anything faster to be bottlenecked.

But if you are feeling cold, then an 8800GTX. Roughly period adjacent and if you keep your coffee on the case, these will keep it warm.

I have a 2600XT paired with my Prescott 660.

Considering the weak CPU and large overhead of G80+ drivers... I would vote for something like Radeon X1950 Pro. Decent performance, great image quality and reasonable power consumption / heat.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-27, 02:32:

Which way is it going, forwards, backwards or staying nailed to 2005?

I would say probably roughly trying to stay within the era maybe, but may a bit of a generation or two later.

havli wrote on 2022-01-27, 11:13:

Considering the weak CPU and large overhead of G80+ drivers... I would vote for something like Radeon X1950 Pro. Decent performance, great image quality and reasonable power consumption / heat.

hmmm, they look a bit pricey with some going over $100.

So I'll figure for playing up to 2010 stuff... out of cards I own, what I'd throw in a rig like that would be the HD4650 or a GF 9600GT (With drive to 6 pin power adapter) to be "well matched".. If slower machines sucked up those cards, I'd put the HD 4870 in it, but I've seen those reviewed where it looks like a 3+ Ghz Core2 is CPU limited on them, so that's tending to overkill. Would do better if you like 1080 and AA though. However, back in about 2010 when last we were running the family hack Dell with a 3.2 Prescott, the monitor was 1280x1024 max and the 7300GT I had in that seemed to do rather well, still loaded up "recent" for the time game demos and could play them in mid to high settings at that res... but yeah, any 7x00 8x00 9x00 geforces from "half way up" the series or better would be good. Then any Radeon HD 3xx0 4xx0 5xx0 6xx0 where the first x is a 6 or better. Although you could "get away" with a HD6450 which are cheap, and that should support some more recent video codecs that are in use, which you have to go to 600 series in Nvidia for and they're priced up because of GPU shortage.

Depends on the OS. For Win98, even the FX5950U is CPU bottlenecked in 3DMark 2001 up to 3.2-3.3Ghz on a Core 2 Extreme x6800.

If you are running XP, then you might gain a bit because of Hyperthreading, but you are still going to be bottlenecked by a faster card.

That CPU is LGA775, so why not get a Pentium D.. say a 940 or higher. That will give you 2x CPU cores + HT.

What is the brand and model of that PSU you are using? If it isn't a high quality brand, expect it to not be able to handle near as much as the sticker claims.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-01-28, 05:15:

so why not get a Pentium D.. say a 940 or higher. That will give you 2x CPU cores + HT.

Yissssss, an excuse to mention my favorite Pentium D thread evarrrrrrrr... The Pentium D 995: A study into a world without Conroe for make benefit glorious forums of VOGONS

retrogamerguy1997 wrote on 2022-01-27, 15:35:

I would say probably roughly trying to stay within the era maybe, but may a bit of a generation or two later. […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-27, 02:32:

Which way is it going, forwards, backwards or staying nailed to 2005?

I would say probably roughly trying to stay within the era maybe, but may a bit of a generation or two later.

havli wrote on 2022-01-27, 11:13:

Considering the weak CPU and large overhead of G80+ drivers... I would vote for something like Radeon X1950 Pro. Decent performance, great image quality and reasonable power consumption / heat.

hmmm, they look a bit pricey with some going over $100.

For 2005-2008 era games I think you can get away with any mid range-ish card from the Radeon 4xxx, 5xxx, or 6xxx series with at least a 128-bit bus and DDR3 (DDR5 would be better of course). There are equivalent GeForce options as well (they tend to cost a bit more). I recently came across a Radeon 5570 basically for free... when it came out in 2010 it wasn't well reviewed, but shockingly (or maybe this shouldn't be a shock) it absolutely destroys UT2004 and similar games.

It seems to me like there's not much value for you in upgrading the other components (CPU, PSU, etc)... It doesn't look your intention is to build an overkill in Windows XP machine (otherwise you might as well just pick up a Core 2 Duo system for cheap...)

Idtech4 engine is pretty P4 optimized and you probably want an NV GPU for that ideally. GF7 or newer I'd say. Something to experience with P4 perhaps.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-28, 05:29:

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-01-28, 05:15:

so why not get a Pentium D.. say a 940 or higher. That will give you 2x CPU cores + HT.

Yissssss, an excuse to mention my favorite Pentium D thread evarrrrrrrr... The Pentium D 995: A study into a world without Conroe for make benefit glorious forums of VOGONS

Hah. That's pretty good. I think the HT should have been enabled on the Pentium D tests though.

I really need to put together a Pentium D rig. Pretty sure I have at least 1 EE, I think the 955.

I've been lucky at points and been able to snag some different 478 and 775 EE chips for really cheap.

The fun part about LGA775 is it really starts getting nice when you get the bus speed up around 450+ Mhz. I ran a Q6600 at 3.84Ghz on a 480Mhz fsb for quite a few years when that was my main machine.

Maybe I should put together a Pentium D system with a nice motherboard that can use DDR3... for the lols.