I'd also be interested if anyone has OC'd a 6200 *PCI*. nTune seems to barf about not having an nForce 2 board ? I tried a 10% increase in both clock and memory and it BSOD'd.

I was also wondering if anyone has fitted a 3rd party cooler to a stock PCI 6200 , which all seem to have a passive cooler

For whatever reason I could not get any worthwhile overclock with my pci 6200, even though mine came from the factory with a fan cooled heatsink (though it is small). I'm thinking that maybe overclocking software does not recognize it properly, because it seems to either have no effect or locks up the computer. No idea on my temps, since I don't believe that most 6200's support thermal monitoring.

Thanks, your experiences echo mine. However speedfan is able to return 2 thermostat values from the card. One is always zero but the other looks like the core GPU temperature. Mine peaks at 50 c when running 3dmark03. This has only been detected at the latest 3.33 version of speedfan. the beta of 2.34 claims to be able to recover the core CPU temp, which so far no other temperature monitor has done for my dell dimension 2350.

Hey, I have a dell Dimension 3100, the only upgrade that I have made is to 2gb of RAM instead of 512mb. I was wondering if the Galaxy GeForce PCI-Express x1 card will work with my computer. I have the original power supply that my computer came with, and I am not sure if that will be a problem. I'm really not sure what the wattage is. I believe it's 250, but honestly, that's just a guess. My only other concern is the use of DDR3 memory in the card. My computer only supports DDR2 RAM, and I was wondering if this affects the video card as well. I've been told the video card works independently but I want some confermation before I rush out and buy the card. If the card is not compatible, then is the Visiontek Radeon X1550 my best alternative? And my last question, would a video card like this be able to run a game like Call of duty 4?

Well I'm no expert but I'd reckon that a slow (x1) PCI-E is better than a PCI. Not sure if you have to match the x? of the card to that of the motherboard, I'd assumed that any PCI-E card would scale down to accommodate the lower bandwidth of the Mobo. Buying a better PCI-E might be a good idea if you think you will take it with you to a better board later ?

I think you will need a better PSU sooner or later. My dimension started to suffer from random BSOD's or devices not appearing at boot time (i.e CD/DVD combo) till I got a new 400Watt supply. As with the graphics card, a higer wattage supply from a good manufacturer could be taken with you to a new PC in the future as the cheap ones which come with most cases are not great.

I don't think you need worry about matching the memory on the GFX card with that on the motherboard, they are independent, the card is in effect a tiny motherboard of it's own.

According to dell that computer does have a pci-e x1 slot. So if you can find a decent pci-e x1 card then it could perform better due to higher slot bandwidth. You can't use any other pci-e card in the x1 slot though (unless you physically modify the board, even then it might not work). Your power supply should be the dell 250W (continuous, not peak) model. It is designed with a little headroom so you might not need to upgrade. If you experience instability/restarting though it probably means it is too much for it to handle. Most pci and pci-e x1 cards pull very little power however. The type of memory in the computer has no relation to what memory type the card can have. I assume you are talking about the galaxy 7300gt pci-e x1 when you say "Galaxy GeForce PCI-Express x1 card." It should run cod4, but you will have to lower the quality and possibly the screen resolution(if you have it set high).

Well I decided that some extra cooling was probably money well spent on my dell dimension 2350/1Gb/400Watt/Gforce 6200 PCI, so I got an Antec Vcool, http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=75060 which is basically a blower which occupies 2 PCI slots and can be adjusted to blow cooler air directly at the GPU heatsink. Fan speed has 3 settings and top speed is not that loud. Now at idle the GPU core temperature is 36 degrees c, based on the output from speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php(can't praise that program too highly)

I've previously used coolbits and the nVidia control to OC nVidia cards, but the latest drivers seem to have removed this facility, forcing you to use a tool called nTune. I tried nTune but it complains I don't have an nForce 2 MOBO !? There's plenty of adverse comments on nTune in various forums, , I think it needs more work, quite possibly it cannot work with PCI ?

So I used the trusted RivaTuner and managed a humble OC (305, 555) to both GPU & Memory without hangs .I ran 3dMark03 as my test suite. Not a very scientific test, and it was late so I may try and locate the tipping point tonight. Without cooling 315 on the GPU gave me a BSOD.

I'd still be interested to know of good/bad experiences with the Sparkle 8500GT PCI card. I have only seen it on ebay and the UK price with tax and postage comes in at £80 , so around $150, which is pretty steep and makes little financial sense. However I find this PCI graphics tweaking so perversely compelling I just might. The PC has so much software on it, migrating to another MOBO is too daunting (you'd think Microsoft would sort out program migration problem. I'd upgrade PC's more frequently if it was easier ?). Just dropping in another card and selling the old one on ebay has a certain simplicity

Oh, hey guys look what I found!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131082

And check out the price! I think I might be in for one! This should probably be better than my GeForce 6200. I'm gonna go check some benchies now!

thanks , very interesting and you're right - the price is good. I'd be interested to know how this compares with the 6200 ? I have always got nVidia cards, for no particular;y good reason actually

Looks pretty nice and I bet you can actualky oc it with ease. The new 6200 are nearly impossible to oc(othjer than the memory).

Ya, tell me about it! I've had no luck oc-ing my 6200. I saw a thread somewhere about flashing the bios on the 6200 to bump the specs, but I haven't tried it yet because if it doesn't work, you've just fried your gpu. I might actually try it now that I know there's a good and affordable replacement! From the benchmarks I've seen of PowerColor's 2400 pro PCI-Express version, it is pretty overclockable, and the performance is decent. I thought about trying to find an 8500gt, but they're like $130!

Hello people. This is actually my first post here, but I've been following the thread for quite a while. I have recently purchased a mini-ITX motherboard (VIA VB7001G) and was looking for a PCI video card to buy. I found this thread as I was looking for PCI GPU comparisons (With little luck). I have recently found and bought a Sparkle 8500GT PCI and I'll report how it handles things (Both on the VIA system, and on my main system) when it arrives by mail.

Cheers.

Trying to post a link for a fix on the UAA drivers for Hp, but need 3 post to do that.

I apologize for doing this. But I'm just making my 3 posts quick so I can post my fix for you guys.

You can delete these posts at any time.

well I tried using the Z-tweaked driver http://downloads.guru3d.com/Z-tweake...load-1621.html which is tuned for speed and also supports the old control panel interface to forceware. I was able to OC the 6200 PCI card to 315/585 and score 2210 on a successful run of 3Dmark03

Great thread - very interesting and about the best info on the net at the moment regarding PCI Graphics Cards !

Anyway, my first post to TechSpot so here goes.

I purchased 5 * Dell GX1's off EBay about 2 years ago, sold 2 for a profit and the rest were stuck up in the loft.

I've had loads of PC's in the past, varying from slow to very quick - only selling them on due to lack of funds. So, when they all went I decided to dig out the old Dells as I use my work Laptop and wanted one at home for the wife !

They came as p2 400, so upgraded one to p3 600 then went for a Slocket and a p3 1GHz - keep looking for a Powerleap and a 1.4GHz Celeron but they go for about £50+ on EBay !

Anway - the GX1 only has ISA and PCI slots so I've tried a few cards. I got a FX5200 64MB which was pretty good (had one years ago and thought it was rubbish LOL) but learned I could get better. So picked up a Radeon 9250 128MB 128bit which was very good but the drivers sucked! Was thinking of getting an FX5500 but going for silly money on EBay and saw a 6200 256MB 64bit PCI (from Misco) and is good but I want more for my old GX1 !

I know I can go out and get a new PC but that's not the point - I love upgrading and getting the most out of these old boxes.

Now does anyone have any comparisons against the 6200 and the x1300, x1550 and where can you get a 8500GT PCI in the UK or ship to the UK ?

Thanks chaps

Thanks fingerman, I can only add 2 things to your experiences.


1) I did not find the nVidia 5500 much better than the 5200


2) The Sparkle 8500GT PCI was being sold on ebay but I noticed in the last few weeks that no more are listed.

I did find a thread in a submarine game site (Silent Hunter ?) where a guy had one and said that while it worked it implemented some kind of PCI->PCI-Ex1 bridge , which some games had problems with. Rivatuner recognised it as a PCI-Ex1 device ?

All of which made me wait for someone to post before I paid out the price of a god new mobo on a PCI graphics card

Alright just a few things right quick.

#1 I really want that 8500GT PCI card , so if anyone has any information on how to get it in the USA either on newegg, amazon, or ebay, please post the information.

#2 There is a new Driver or Unofficial driver for Win9x users, 82.69 driver and it works great using my PCI BFG Geforce 6200 256MB PCI card.

#3

The BFG Geforce 6200 256MB PCI , details are right there on how much this card is overclock with. This card is very good and i haven't even overclock it yet.

impressive. I'm surprised by the standard core clock speed. My PNY 6200 GPU clock is 299 out of the box and I think I would struggle to OC it to 350