Tell me the Best PCI slot video card

I'm in the same situation, I need a PCI video card too. I've been searching Newegg and I have no idea which one I should choose. How does this look? (the reviews are pretty good) GeForce FX 5200 Video Card, 256MB DDR, 128-bit
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-145-087&depa=0

edit: my budget is <$100 so the 5600 is out
my goals are playing games like need fo speed underground 2, ut2k4, swat 4, sims 2, Vice City, FIFA 2005, Serious Sam, Farcry. I also need a dual monitor capable vid card.

My sys specs: P4 3.0 HT / 512 DDR

thanks :grinthumb

pci video

Well, for $100, this is probably the best card. The 5700le runs at the same speeds as the 5200, but it has 4 pixel piplines instead of the 5200's 2. So it's like it can process more at a time because of having more pixel pipes. I don't know if you'll be able to play far cry with any pci card well. Maybe if you have it on the lowest settings at the lowest screen resolution it would run ok.

Edit: I'm not sure now if the 5200 has 2 or 4 pipes. One source I found says 2, the other says 4, so now I'm unsure.

So the 256MB of ram on the 5200 doesn't really matter?

256mb on a 5200 wouldn't make much difference. On high end cards it's useful, but I don't think the 5200 would be much improved by it. If you really think you need a 256mb card, then get a 5600 256mb card(unless it's too expensive). The 128mb 5700le is ok, and the 5200 may be good enough, how good do you need your games to run?
5600 256mb

I'll be running dual 15" monitors w/a max res of 1024 x 768 so higher resolutions aren't necessary. I just want playable performance with hopefully some nice graphics. Do you know what the difference between the APOLLO nVIDIA GeForce FX5700LE Video Card, 128MB DDR and the Jaton nVIDIA GeForce FX5700LE Video Card, 128MB DDR is?

Why Must People doubt PCI cards? What have they done to you? Nothing... I have a GeForce FX 5500 and I can run Far Cry on High at 800x600. Why must you anger me with these false claims! Also Overclocking doesn't hurt either . I can overclock this Bad boy to 360/480 and no artifacts :grinthumb . So chew on that for a bit.

I agree with crazy_comp_dude there is virtually no performance difference between an AGP and a PCI based version of a video card on lower resolutions. As for you running far cry you will be able to get 30fps give or take depending on how much is going on screen at 800*600 resolution but there will be alot of slowdowns in certain areas of the games. Maybe crazy_comp_dude can tell you how many frames per second he gets out of his card but below are the benchmarks from two sites with various cards they dont include the 5500 that crazy_comp_dude has but it does contain 5200, 5600, 5700, etc

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/far_cry_nvidia/page3.asp

This one contains the 5700 and 5900 in there

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/2004-27gpu2_8.html

Hope it helps!! :wave:

I found a 5600 pci for about $100. Here . It should be a good card.