GeForce 6100 IGP vs. Radeon 9100 & The Sims 2

[zandor]

I'm considering setting up my sister-in-law's parents and kid (13 yo) sister with a rig for x-mas. I've got all the parts except for a mobo, ram, CPU, and XP Home unless I decide to toss in a DVD burner.
Normally this would be easy, but I can't find any benchmarks or reviews of NVidia's new GeForce 6100 onboard graphics and the machine really needs to be able to run the Sims 2. Now I'm on a bit of a budget here. Not for a lack of cash really, but more of a I'll feel bad if I spend more than I can afford to spend on everyone sort of problem, so figure $300 + the randome spare parts I don't need. This True550 PSU is gonne be overkill... (needed a 24-pin for my current board)
First off, does anyone have useful benches of a machine with GeForce 6100 integrated graphics? That'd be quite helpful. I'm also curious if 5xxx series NV
I really don't know much about the Sims 2, so I'm also not sure if say A64 2800+ w/ 512MB or a Sempron 3100+ w/ 1GB would be better. Or hell, maybe a Celeron.

I have a Radeon 9100 128MB AGP card lying around, so I figure I've got four options:
PCI-e mobo w/ 6100 onboard
AGP mobo + 9100
AGP & PCI-e mobo + 9100
PCI-e mobo + cheap PCI-e card (6200 TC or X300) + Sempron + 512 ram

From what I've seen so far the AGP + PCI-e boards aren't exactly wonderful. But I'm not sure if one wouldn't be better than an integrated 6100 or a cheapo card on a PCI-e board, particularly since it seems the AGP slot is the problematic one. I'd like to avoid tying them to AGP. OTOH, maybe I should. I've got a 5900nu and a 6800GT they might inherit when I'm done with them.

 

[ClearM4]

Update: Searched for a review of the 6100 motherboards. The 6100 is pretty close to Ati x200 onboard video and I think the 9100AGP card is better bet now. If sims 2 doesn't work on the 9100 pick up a used 9600pro for ~$50

Old post:I think you're best off going with the 6100 onboard video motherboard and 754 socket semp. This is obviously not a gaming rig and the 6100 should work great for everything else. Plus, if you need a more powerful video card later on you can always upgrade with the PCI-E slot which is what all new video cards will need.

 

[jdLordHelmet]

I was really bored one day and tried out Sims 2, and I seem to remember it ran kinda clunky on my machine. Seems like it's an uncanny resource hog, and takes a surprisingly high level of computer to run it well, but I may not be remembering right. I didn't play it much.

 

[zandor]

I've got it. I had to pick it up to see what the ladies were going to be getting all excited about. (I've dated more than one Sims player) The problem is running it on a dual Opteron 246 with 2GB ram, and a 6800GT doesn't help me guess how it'll do on a much weaker system.

Since my last post it occurred to me to set my GFFX5200 PCI card to primary and run it on that. It's probably the first time I've used the 3D part of that 5200. Usually it just runs the 3rd screen and the 6800GT does all the 3D stuff. The 5200 seems to be slightly choppy but tolerable at default settings, which strangely enough is 1024x768 with pretty much everything on except AA. Still, this doesn't help much as it doesn't tell me how integrated 6100 graphics are going to do, since I have no idea how the 6100 integrated graphics compare with my 5200 PCI or 9100 AGP. If the 6100 integrated graphics can keep up with the 5200, I think they're a go.