What GPU would you get for a retro gaming system?

D

dany man

Limp Gawd
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Aug 26, 2019
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At some point I'm going to be putting together a retro gaming PC. Ideally Id like to build it in a koolance PC1-c case with the water cooled 230w PSU, but odds are I will not be able to find that.

Anyway I do have alot of water cooling parts from koolance from 2003 and back. A handful of CPU blocks, a chip-set block and GPU block. And even the deathtrap aluminum rads.

I have a ABIT KG7-RAID, ram, 2 top ends hdd's from the time, sound card, CPU, (1600+ if I recall) But no GPU. if I had two GPU blocks I get a voodoo5500 volt mod it and OC the snot out of it. But as cool as the voodoo5500 is it was not the best card for the time and behind the rest of the cards when new. So if you were building such a system with parts from 2001 ish and back what would you get?
Keep in mind the GPU blocks I have a cross drill block that can only handle 20W
I was thinking GeForce 3 or a ATI 8500, But those set right above the 20w the block can take.
 
I think you're over complicating your options by using that WB setup for the GPU. All depends on what games you're trying to play with it. I'd probably look at a GeForce 4 TI 4200 if you're looking at Pre DX9 stuff.
 
I would get the 9700 Pro, even though you do not have a water block for it. It was released in 2002 so you would be good on that.
 
FlawleZ said:
I think you're over complicating your options by using that WB setup for the GPU. All depends on what games you're trying to play with it. I'd probably look at a GeForce 4 TI 4200 if you're looking at Pre DX9 stuff.
Click to expand...
I do agree. I do have the newer gpu-180 block but I was more so kepping this a dx7 and older system and wanted to use all the older aluminum blocks.
 
Anything dx9 is too new for 2001, even 4200ti stuff is arguably too new. For 2001, I'd stick with something like the Geforce 2 32-64mb. The Marvin forum at Vogons.org might be helpful as well.
 
Top AGP cards
ATi HD 3850 - faster memory, less memory (GDDR5) - Top AGP GPU
ATi HD 4670 - slower memory, more memory (GDDR3) - 2nd Top AGP GPU
ATi X1950 Pro - Meh (Decent GPU, but thats about it.)
NV 7950 GT - Too expensive to care, too rare.
NV 7900 GS - Very expensive
NV 7800 GS - Very expensive
NV 7600 GS - Mixed expensive - greatest overclocker - hack-mods-overvolts (palit)
ATi FireGL X3-256 (X800 xt) - great for retro, doesn't take too much space. (recommended)
NV Ti4800 SE - Expensive vs performance


All in all, I recommend getting either FireGL x3-256 or 7600GS. Old systems will still work with those without any issues.
PhilsComputerLab -- Recommended YT channel, he tests and plays around with older hardware.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9IJ2QvygoBJKSOnUgXIRA
 
cyklondx said:
Top AGP cards
ATi HD 3850 - faster memory, less memory (GDDR5) - Top AGP GPU
ATi HD 4670 - slower memory, more memory (GDDR3) - 2nd Top AGP GPU
ATi X1950 Pro - Meh (Decent GPU, but thats about it.)
NV 7950 GT - Too expensive to care, too rare.
NV 7900 GS - Very expensive
NV 7800 GS - Very expensive
NV 7600 GS - Mixed expensive - greatest overclocker - hack-mods-overvolts (palit)
ATi FireGL X3-256 (X800 xt) - great for retro, doesn't take too much space. (recommended)
NV Ti4800 SE - Expensive vs performance


All in all, I recommend getting either FireGL x3-256 or 7600GS. Old systems will still work with those without any issues.
PhilsComputerLab -- Recommended YT channel, he tests and plays around with older hardware.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9IJ2QvygoBJKSOnUgXIRA
Click to expand...
Ever herd of the agp bridge chip and how they make for a lot of problems with older systems ? or the lack of things like fog tables or 8-bit padded textures in newer cards like the 6xxx/7xxx or ati 8xx and up?
And second off 20w TDP ? you tossed that out the door.
 
dany man said:
Ever herd of the agp bridge chip and how they make for a lot of problems with older systems ? or the lack of things like fog tables or 8-bit padded textures in newer cards like the 6xxx/7xxx or ati 8xx and up?
And second off 20w TDP ? you tossed that out the door.
Click to expand...

You can upgrade the psu, and you should.

The Ti and 7600GS will work with just 20w.
(even tho they are listed with higher wattage - you won't be able to oc power mod etc, but they'll work just fine)

I owned this motherboard before, and g73 chips and agp bridges worked fine on it. (BSOD on bios flash on windows 2000 server - there are issues with certain drivers, and certain cpu's, i didn't have ati card at the time with bridge)

(3dmark01 results are worse than pci-e cards equivalents, but still quite decent vs native agp cards.)
Recent tests with x1950, 3850 on ibm xseries 225 much newer server board with just 350W psu with far many more devices like:
6x 320ultra scsi, (backplane likely around 100W)
sound blaster 2 Zs gold,
2x 3.2GHz gallatin xeons
8GB DDR

Was also getting BSODs on bios flash, extensive overclocking. (g73 didn't have overclocking issues.)

beyond that performance, and everything worked just fine.


// If you are in US I can send you 9500 FireGL (if you like it you can keep it), and/ x1950 for you to test if it works for you -- if it doesn't i would ask to send it back. || also have old dusty Koolance Exos Computer Liquid Cooling System.
 
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cyklondx said:
Top AGP cards
ATi HD 3850 - faster memory, less memory (GDDR5) - Top AGP GPU
ATi HD 4670 - slower memory, more memory (GDDR3) - 2nd Top AGP GPU
ATi X1950 Pro - Meh (Decent GPU, but thats about it.)
NV 7950 GT - Too expensive to care, too rare.
NV 7900 GS - Very expensive
NV 7800 GS - Very expensive
NV 7600 GS - Mixed expensive - greatest overclocker - hack-mods-overvolts (palit)
ATi FireGL X3-256 (X800 xt) - great for retro, doesn't take too much space. (recommended)
NV Ti4800 SE - Expensive vs performance


All in all, I recommend getting either FireGL x3-256 or 7600GS. Old systems will still work with those without any issues.
PhilsComputerLab -- Recommended YT channel, he tests and plays around with older hardware.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9IJ2QvygoBJKSOnUgXIRA
Click to expand...

I still have my BFG 7800GS OC. It's a G71 7800GS and overclocked super well. Was a great card.
 
If you're really determined to keep it period, I would say GeForce 2/3 or maybe a Radeon 7500 or 8500? I owned all of those at one point or another back in the day and the 8500 was my fave but a GeForce 2 Ti or Ultra would probably be the best for a strictly DX7 system paired with a K7 CPU. Fwiw I remember the Radeon 8500 having some driver issues that caused weird transparency texture glitches but the GeForce 2 (MX200 in my case) was always solid.
 
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