Upgrade Dell 4300 or Not

I have a Dell 4300, P4 1.6MHz system with a GeForce 2MX card with 32MB.
Last week I picked up the Conquerer FX 5200+ AGP card with 128 MB at
CompUSA for $29 (after rebate). Is it worth it to upgrade my video card
for this machine.

Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:
> I have a Dell 4300, P4 1.6MHz system with a GeForce 2MX card with 32MB.
> Last week I picked up the Conquerer FX 5200+ AGP card with 128 MB at
> CompUSA for $29 (after rebate). Is it worth it to upgrade my video card
> for this machine.

You mean, is it worth it to use the FX5200, or to get something better
than that? The FX5200 is certainly not a fast card, but surely faster
than a GeForce2 MX. Likely a faster card than that would give a benefit
as well, but with something like a 6600GT you'd likely be CPU limited..

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

Robert Hancock wrote:
> Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:
>
>> I have a Dell 4300, P4 1.6MHz system with a GeForce 2MX card with
>> 32MB. Last week I picked up the Conquerer FX 5200+ AGP card with 128
>> MB at CompUSA for $29 (after rebate). Is it worth it to upgrade my
>> video card for this machine.
>
>
> You mean, is it worth it to use the FX5200, or to get something better
> than that? The FX5200 is certainly not a fast card, but surely faster
> than a GeForce2 MX. Likely a faster card than that would give a benefit
> as well, but with something like a 6600GT you'd likely be CPU limited..
>

What I want to know is if it will give a reasonable improvment over what
I have now to justify $29 on a 3 year old system. I know there are
better cards out there for far more money. What is the next price point
to show a measurable improvement.

Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:
> Robert Hancock wrote:
>
>> Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:
>>
>>> I have a Dell 4300, P4 1.6MHz system with a GeForce 2MX card with
>>> 32MB. Last week I picked up the Conquerer FX 5200+ AGP card with 128
>>> MB at CompUSA for $29 (after rebate). Is it worth it to upgrade my
>>> video card for this machine.
>>
>>
>>
>> You mean, is it worth it to use the FX5200, or to get something better
>> than that? The FX5200 is certainly not a fast card, but surely faster
>> than a GeForce2 MX. Likely a faster card than that would give a
>> benefit as well, but with something like a 6600GT you'd likely be CPU
>> limited..
>>
>
> What I want to know is if it will give a reasonable improvment over what
> I have now to justify $29 on a 3 year old system. I know there are
> better cards out there for far more money. What is the next price point
> to show a measurable improvement.

Well, just looking at 3DMark2001 scores as an example, a GeForce2MX on a
Pentium 4 1.6GHz seems to give around 3500-4200 points. A GeForce
FX5200 (non-LE) gives around 6000-7100 points.

A GeForce FX5600 puts it at around 7000-8200 and a 6600GT puts it around
7700-9050, so it looks like much faster than an FX5200 starts to become
CPU limited on that system.

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

Robert Hancock wrote:
> Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:
>
>> Robert Hancock wrote:
>>
>>> Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have a Dell 4300, P4 1.6MHz system with a GeForce 2MX card with
>>>> 32MB. Last week I picked up the Conquerer FX 5200+ AGP card with 128
>>>> MB at CompUSA for $29 (after rebate). Is it worth it to upgrade my
>>>> video card for this machine.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You mean, is it worth it to use the FX5200, or to get something
>>> better than that? The FX5200 is certainly not a fast card, but surely
>>> faster than a GeForce2 MX. Likely a faster card than that would give
>>> a benefit as well, but with something like a 6600GT you'd likely be
>>> CPU limited..
>>>
>>
>> What I want to know is if it will give a reasonable improvment over
>> what I have now to justify $29 on a 3 year old system. I know there
>> are better cards out there for far more money. What is the next price
>> point to show a measurable improvement.
>
>
> Well, just looking at 3DMark2001 scores as an example, a GeForce2MX on a
> Pentium 4 1.6GHz seems to give around 3500-4200 points. A GeForce
> FX5200 (non-LE) gives around 6000-7100 points.
>
> A GeForce FX5600 puts it at around 7000-8200 and a 6600GT puts it around
> 7700-9050, so it looks like much faster than an FX5200 starts to become
> CPU limited on that system.
>
Thanks. Seems like the Fx 5200 card gives a 70% improvement over the
GeForce2MX. Not bad for $29. The FX 5600 based card only gives another
30 % and seems to cost 5 times as much, from what I've found. guess,
I'll go with FX 5200.

Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:

> I have a Dell 4300, P4 1.6MHz system with a GeForce 2MX card with
> 32MB. Last week I picked up the Conquerer FX 5200+ AGP card with 128
> MB at CompUSA for $29 (after rebate). Is it worth it to upgrade my
> video card for this machine.

No. The FX5200 is hardly better than a GF4MX440 which itself is just a tad
faster than Your GF2MX. So no, the FX5200 won't be a upgrade which is worth
its money. This would be more the case for something like a FX5700 or
better...

But there's something to consider: the Dell Dimension 4300 is a Socket478
system which means You can go up to at least a P4 2.4GHz. But then, this
system also uses SDRAM instead of RDRAM or DDR-SDRAM. And SDRAM is a real
bottleneck for a P4 system even with only 1.6GHz (the Dimension 4300 is
around as fast as a 1GHz PIII in most apps due to the slow memory). So I
wouldn't really upgrade it but replace it with a faster system...

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
> Jeffrey Augenbaum wrote:
>
>
>>I have a Dell 4300, P4 1.6MHz system with a GeForce 2MX card with
>>32MB. Last week I picked up the Conquerer FX 5200+ AGP card with 128
>>MB at CompUSA for $29 (after rebate). Is it worth it to upgrade my
>>video card for this machine.
>
>
> No. The FX5200 is hardly better than a GF4MX440 which itself is just a tad
> faster than Your GF2MX. So no, the FX5200 won't be a upgrade which is worth
> its money. This would be more the case for something like a FX5700 or
> better...
>
> But there's something to consider: the Dell Dimension 4300 is a Socket478
> system which means You can go up to at least a P4 2.4GHz. But then, this
> system also uses SDRAM instead of RDRAM or DDR-SDRAM. And SDRAM is a real
> bottleneck for a P4 system even with only 1.6GHz (the Dimension 4300 is
> around as fast as a 1GHz PIII in most apps due to the slow memory). So I
> wouldn't really upgrade it but replace it with a faster system...
>
> Benjamin
>
>
An FX5200 may be only a bit faster than an MX440, but an MX440 is
significantly faster than a GeForce2 MX..

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

Robert Hancock wrote:

[useless fullquote deleted]

> An FX5200 may be only a bit faster than an MX440, but an MX440 is
> significantly faster than a GeForce2 MX..

It depends on what You understand as "significantly". A upgrade from a
GF2MX200 to a GF4MX440 is probably worth it, but from a GF2MX or GF2MX400 to
a GF4MX440 it's not.

Benjamin