Which video card is better??

[bobo]

I am trying to build a system for my daughters boyfriend who gave me a pile of parts to create a system from. In the pile he gave me a pci S3 savage4 32 meg video card which he would like to use. He says that it was awsome when he got it new. Now i know that basically all S3 cards weren't the best but the only card I have in my pile of parts is an old orginal rage 128 ati card (agp) with only 16 megs that I could use in place of the savage4.

Still would the 16 meg agp card give better performace for games (he wants to play older games like halflife and the such.). The system is a pentium 3 with 256 megs of ram on an unknown motherboard with a 60 gig drive.

Thanks.

[cabal]

It's true that the S3 cards weren't the greatest performers, but the savage s4 is a decent card. I would choose it over the ATI.

[constructor]

Savage cards dont mix with some games. ie EA Stuff

[Gabriel]

Hi,
For games - choose the ATI
but if you want more system stability - go on the s3 card - bare in mind that earlty AGP card were actually "slower" than PCI cards. It also depend on the Mainboard. just get updated driver for the trick.


Cheers ,
Gabriel

[bobo]

Hi,
For games - choose the ATI
but if you want more system stability - go on the s3 card - bare in mind that earlty AGP card were actually "slower" than PCI cards. It also depend on the Mainboard. just get updated driver for the trick.


Cheers ,
Gabriel

Well the S3 savage4 card is a pci card. But both of the cards aren't first generation, they both came out around 1998/1999 or so.

My buddy is going to actually look for an old TNT2 32 megger agp card that hes not using. That would be the best bet I think. They are still supported under nvida's unified drivers.

Otherwise I am just going to run 3dmark 2001 using both of the cards and see what happens.

[NooNoo]

Why not run both? Give him a second monitor set up!

[cisco2]

If you're generous enough to rebuild his PC, then why not drop $40 on a 64mb GeForce2 AGP card? They're out there if you hunt around a bit. The better that PC runs the more time he'll spend on the computer and the less time he'll spend on, well nevermind that. Webcams are cheap too!

[bobo]

If you're generous enough to rebuild his PC, then why not drop $40 on a 64mb GeForce2 AGP card? They're out there if you hunt around a bit. The better that PC runs the more time he'll spend on the computer and the less time he'll spend on, well nevermind that. Webcams are cheap too!

As for the dual monitors, not a bad idea, but it would just confuse him plus he only has one monitor. Hes not a very computer savvy user, but just likes to play games.

I told him that he would be most happy with a cheap geforce 2 mx like you suggested, but for now I went with the ati rage 128 card.

I ran 3dmark and it gave a result of 569 3dmarks for the ati card and it gave a result of 329 for the S3 card. Plus the reference drivers for the ati seem better built.