Having faster memory chips does not guarantee higher clocks. Termination and layout play a large role as well. If the layout sucks or the DDR signals are not terminated properly, you'll have a hard time going faster than the current clock. Team red cards usually need parallel termination on the signals for anything significantly higher than ~220MHz (your 9600TX for example has parallel termination with VTT in place, the Radeon 9000 non-pro does not, the pro does.

I'd even question if the PCI variant of this card would significantly benefit from the additional clocks. Doubling the bandwidth by going to 128bit is more substantial here.

I'd just go for same speed memory and fully populate it.

If you have the ability to do it I don’t see the harm in giving it a go. To me that is your biggest issue.

For any ram upgrades just be sure the pinouts, voltages and ram configuration is the same

Having that extra bandwidth does make a big difference, I bought a very similar agp fx5200 back in 2003 and it was so slow I ended up selling it and going back to my mx440 until I could afford something faster. The stock FX5200 is so slow, unless you plan on using it in something really not suited for it, you should see an uplift in performance. If you are going to run it in a socket 7 you will really need a k6-2+/3 or 3+ as there is more driver overhead in the fx series vs earlier drivers for say the 2/4 mx pci series or TNT, voodoo 3 etc

FullYes wrote on Today, 06:00:

If you have the ability to do it I don’t see the harm in giving it a go. To me that is your biggest issue.

For any ram upgrades just be sure the pinouts, voltages and ram configuration is the same

Having that extra bandwidth does make a big difference, I bought a very similar agp fx5200 back in 2003 and it was so slow I ended up selling it and going back to my mx440 until I could afford something faster. The stock FX5200 is so slow, unless you plan on using it in something really not suited for it, you should see an uplift in performance. If you are going to run it in a socket 7 you will really need a k6-2+/3 or 3+ as there is more driver overhead in the fx series vs earlier drivers for say the 2/4 mx pci series or TNT, voodoo 3 etc

Good point. Whatever memory you use: VDDQ and VDD must match your cards current voltage OR you will have to adjust it. By the looks of the card there is only one linear regulator for the memory. The switching one is for the GPU. The Winbond Chips you currently use have VDDQ = VDD = 2.5V.

So you either have to find memory with the exact same arrangement (VDDQ = VDD = 2.5V) or you'll have to adjust the voltage regulation for memory to increase / decrease the voltage. But you'll be probably stuck with VDDQ = VDD since the PCB does not allow for split rails here. The memory used on the 9600TX from Medion/MSI is Samsung K4D261638E-TC36 - it'll run at VDDQ = VDD = 2.5V.

NorsteinB wrote on Today, 05:02:

so I would "only" need to populate the vacant RAM solder masks and their surrounding resistor pads.

Let’s be honest, it’s a bit of a tedious task.
Because having to identify and position all those resistors and capacitors around the memory – it’s a bit of a faff.
If you fancy it, why not?

NorsteinB wrote on Today, 05:02:

Hi! […]
Show full quote

Hi!

I was a bit disappointed with my Geforce FX 5200 PCI (128 MB, 64 bit) that is still the second fastest PCI graphics cards I own, next to a CM3 ATI Radeon 9000 256 MB 128 bit that sadly lacks support for 8bit paletted textures, table fog and DX9, with the former two being legacy features often used in W9x games and the latter necessary for some Glide wrappers, so if the FX 5200 was 128 bit, it would tick all the boxes (together with EMBM that the Radeon also supports) and be as fast or even a bit faster than the Radeon.

Then I saw Bits und Bolts upgrading the memory of a Geforce 4 MX 440 SE from 64 bit to 128 bit. He even had to jump through some extra hoops because the only memory he had on hand had twice the capacity so he had to make them be recognized as only half that. No idea why someone would do that to an AGP stinker when the 128 bit version is readily available for around 15 bucks but still.

https://youtu.be/ywnIQXl-Mvs

And so I checked: my Zotac Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 PCI 128 MB 64 bit uses the exact same PCB as the 256 MB 128 bit version, and all the resistors around the back of the GPU look the same. It auto detects the memory so I would "only" need to populate the vacant RAM solder masks and their surrounding resistor pads.

The attachment Zotac Geforce FX 5200 128 MB PCI.jpeg is no longer available

And what's more, I kinda pulled the jackpot with a very late chip from 2008, this is a die shrunk GPU and a later stepping, practically guaranteed to run 300-325 MHz instead of 250!

The attachment Zotac Geforce FX 5200 128 MB PCI front.jpg is no longer available

That got me thinking: why bother with 5ns memory, then? Shouldn't the card handle 4 or even 3ns memory instead, as long as the memory chips that are already on there got replaced, too? People do it for 3dfx cards all the time. And with this FX 5200 having the potential to become more or less the ultimate Windows 9x PCI graphics card, it would definitely be worth the hassle. I even have a donor card here, the Medion ATI Radeon 9600 TX (a 9500 Pro with TSOP memory and slightly higher base clock) with 3.6 ns memory!
I believe at one point I even had a Radeon 9600 XT 256 MB with TSOP 3.3ns memory but I gave that one to a friend in Italy.

So anyway, where is the error in my thought process?

And if there is none, should I keep searching for a 256 MB TSOP2 RAM donor card first?

Thats a cheeky hardware hack and I like it.
Ive often thought about doing similar with motherboards that have less features for what looks like no other reason than they didnt fit the controller chip and pin header (firewire ports etc)

Watching this thread.

tehsiggi wrote on Today, 05:51:

Team red cards usually need parallel termination on the signals for anything significantly higher than ~220MHz

The FX5200 presents quite an interesting situation.
As with the XFX, this board features series terminating resistors for the memory signal lines.
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/xfx-pv-t34k-uak5
And on this board, they’ve run out of those resistors in stock.
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/xfx- … -t34k-nahg-v3-3

Albatron decided not to settle for half-measures and solved this problem in a radical (and cheap) way.
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/alba … eforce-fx5200ep
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncard/image/i … 72173776690.JPG

It seems that this Zotac graphics card we’re talking about won’t set any memory speed records, regardless of which memory chips are used.
But if it’s a 64-bit card, it’s worth adding more memory chips to increase the memory bandwidth.

Found a better donor - an ATI Radeon 9800 SE 256 MB in 128 bit design.

It cannot be unlocked to the full card anyway, and is basically a worse 9600 XT.

But it has 8 Hynix HY5DU561622CT-4, the correct organisation and voltages.

The maximum clockspeed is slightly lower but if I'm not going to reach far anyway, having twice the memory size might be good for something.

I don't see a scenario for that, but at any rate I would miss the 9600TX more. It is the faster card, even. And less power hungry to boot.

NorsteinB wrote on Today, 15:14:

Found a better donor - an ATI Radeon 9800 SE 256 MB in 128 bit design. […]
Show full quote

Found a better donor - an ATI Radeon 9800 SE 256 MB in 128 bit design.

It cannot be unlocked to the full card anyway, and is basically a worse 9600 XT.

But it has 8 Hynix HY5DU561622CT-4, the correct organisation and voltages.

The maximum clockspeed is slightly lower but if I'm not going to reach far anyway, having twice the memory size might be good for something.

I don't see a scenario for that, but at any rate I would miss the 9600TX more. It is the faster card, even. And less power hungry to boot.

You can't unlock the full 8 pipes on the 9800SE? Palit had the same card with all 8 PP enabled as Radeon 9800Pro 128Bit. If you need bios to try it, I have that card somewhere.

With 8PP, i'd take it over the 9600TX probably.. - but it's your call, both have memory that should be suitable.

There are plenty of dead cards out there with the chips you need surely?

Ebay is usually awash with such cards being sold as "untested", "spare/repair", "dont know if it works" etc.