Changing cards

G

Goliath666

Geek Trainee
i had a Nvidia Mx200 32MB card that came stock with my computer.
my cousin gave me a Ge Force fx 5200 128MB

i installed it n i updated the device drivers but my comp is running jst as it did before.

2.67Ghz
1GB Ram
XP OS

is there something else i got to do to enjoy the extra power of the card
 
How were you expecting it to run differently? It wont make your system any faster in normal things like web browsing and downloading. The only thing it should affect at all are games and even then a 5200 isn't that great of a card, especially for modern games. One more thing: Is that 32 mb card onboard? If so, are you sure you disabled it?
 
the 32MB card was the stock card that came with the system was i pulled before i put the 5200 in.

yea i loaded midnight club 2 and NFS underground 2 n tried to up the graphics quality for them and the game started laggin.
 
You won't be able to run the games at high settings with that card, medium if you're lucky.

If you want more performance, then a cheap Radeon 9600XT or Radeon 9800(pro or XT) will be good.
 
As Fred said, the FX5200 isn't the greatest card out, but nevertheless, a big upgrade from a MX200 32MB. You should be able to run those games on medium settings comfortably, but probably not max.
 
i would reccomend not using 5200 card, just get a ATI Radeon 9600, not XT, or pro, the 9600 can be overclocked very high, i myself got the core speed from 325mhz to 486mhz and that was on passive cooling, and i could run most games on high settings, in benchmarks i made a thread, benchmarking my x800xt pe, and the 9600, its worth taking a look at.

i have had 2 GeForce FX 5200 graphics cards before, one was 128mb, and the 2nd one was a BFG OC 5200, and i payed £111 for it 6 months ago, and i though, man this is a high end card, untill i started playing games, and looking at benchmarks on the internet, and benchmarking it myself, i was not impressed, it was a very rubbish overclocker too, overclocking made no difference, i couldent play most games on medium, but funny enough, i found DOOM 3 the only game playable on the high settings and 1024x768 res.

i would spend about £50 on getting somthing like a 9600, its not a high end card, but it if overclocked, does give some impressive results.

i wouldent even bother putting that FX 5200 in.

but if you dont want to play game, then i suppose the fx 5200 will do you, if you want to play games, get somthing like a 9600 as its cheap, or maybe an x700, or 9800XT.
 
That would work, ATI make the GPU and usually a 'reference' card. Other manufacturers make the cards to sell although ATI do make their own cards as well.
 
Yes that would work, it is an ATI Radeon card.
my 9600 ATI card was a CONNECT 3D Radeon 9600.


i cant say weather yours would overclock as good as mine, even if it does not overclock as good, you will still be able to play all games good.


maybe you could look for a ATI Radeon X700 or X700Pro, maybe a 9800xt or pro.
a GeForce 6600GT is a good card aswell, but they all cost alot more than a 9600 i think, i have seen 9600 cards on sale for about £40-£50 in some places.
 
The 6600GTs are good mid range cards, but the problem is unless you want to upgrade to a PCI-E motherboard, which will also require a new CPU the AGP versions of the cards are more expensive than the native PCI-E.
 
All graphics cards can be overclocked, cpu's, and ram can too also be overclocked, it just depends on how far.
there is things you should consider before overclocking, eg, getting better cooling, but sometimes the stock cooling does just fine up to a certain speed.

even 2 cards or cpu's that are exatly the same may not actually be able to reach the same speeds when overclocked, its the luck of the draw, but some series of cards are good overclocked, like the 9600 series.
 
thats the only downside about oc'in its really a matter of luck the only the thing you can feel confident about when overclocking is motherboards cause certain ones just really have good features and do it well but as far as processors cards and memory go its all like slots lol (unless maybe u got super expensive dual chinal ram with heatspreaders and all the goodies)
 
you have to go into your bios, to get into my bios, i press delete on the main screen before windows starts, depending on how old your computer is, and what type of mobo you have, it can be different, some people press F2 to get into bios i think.

well, i dsont know exatly how you would overclock your cpu/ram, but i can tell you how i did it.

Warning: dont overclock your ram if its cheap stuff, like generic ram like mine, this sort of generic ram that i have got can only handle up to 50mhz overclock, i am currently running my ram at 425mhz, the stock speed is 400mhz.

ProcalX has made some good posts, and thread on guids to overclock, i suggest you take a look at them.

also, if your motherboard is a standard intel motherboard, or an old motherboard, depending on the manufactuter, some motherboards dont include any overclocking options, but like with my intel 810i motherboard, i press a key, i think its F11, and it unlocks some overclocking options, but my cpu is locked.

anyway, what i did to overclock my AMD 64 3700+ is, to get it to 2.8ghz, decreased, the HT multiplyer to 3x, as if i left it at 4X or 5X, i would have to reset cmos, as it would make the HT (hyper transport) go over 2000mhz, and then this makes windows crash, if its done inside windows, or freeze upon starting your computer.

So i decreased the HT multiplyer to 3x, then in 5mhz increments, i upped the FSB, all the way from 200mhz, ot 254mhz, in order for me to stay stable at 2.8ghz, i had to upp the voltage from 1.4v to 1.45v, i alsa had to change the FSB Ratio to 1:1.6 so the ram frequency never went too high, as if i never changed the CPU/Memory ratio, i would end up frying my ram as it would have been running at 504mhz.
so, at the moment, my cpu is overclocked by 600mhz, i was able to be 80% stable at 2.9ghz, thats 700mhz overclocked, from 2.2ghz, but 3.0ghz, that made my bios all garbled, and i couldent boot into windows, i dont understand how it damaged my bios, i had to reset the cmos by shorting 2 pins on the motherboard.

i would have done a step by step, but i dont need to, procalx has done a very handy tutorial here:
http://www.hardwareforums.com/how-overlock-ongoing-tutorial-9373/
Also, by overclocking your cpu, you might not get that much better result sin games, what is your full system specs at the moment?
and all cpu's dont overclock well, so dont have your heart set on getting blazing fast result's.
 
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