Graphics Card Upgrade

BattlingCheese

Hi,

I need you guys/girls help in choosing a new Graphics Card.
I Currently have a 12Mb Voodoo2 on a AMDK6 2 333MHz,80MB RAM System.
I play Half-Life,Unreal Tournament,Freespace2 & Quake III.

I have no AGP slot's so I am forced to use PCI based cards.

So far I have narrowed it down to one of the following cards:
1)Voodoo3
2)Creative 3DB Riva TNT2 Vanta
3)Guillemot Cougar TNT2 M64

I have had no problems with my old Voodoo2 and am leaning towards the
Voodoo3.

All opinions gratefully recieved.

Thank You.

Kali

a better graphics card wont make games run that much faster on that system... no point in buying a crap graphics card just because its pci and then find out next year that your going to have to get a new one with a new computer to take full advantage of it. save your money imo.

_CreeD_

I'd agree with Kali, BUT if you're stuck on getting a new one, there will be a PCI version of the V5500. You won't get the most out of it at the mo., but you shouldn't have to throw it away when you do upgrade the rest.

_CreeD_

Here's what Anandtech had to say about it

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With the arrival of the PCI Voodoo5 5500, new life can be brought to aging systems. If you are running on a higher end CPU, such as a Pentium III 550E or above, and are limited to a PCI video card, the Voodoo5 5500 is a blessing. No longer must you suffer through slow games due to the lack of a good PCI video card.

In older systems, with lower-end CPUs, the Voodoo5 5500 can only do so much before it is limited by the slow speed of the CPU. As our Celeron 433 tests showed, the card is not strikingly faster than the old (and inexpensive) Voodoo3 3000. With the CPU acting as such a bottleneck, it seems like the best idea would to be to upgrade the CPU now and get a faster video card later, when the system can actually take advantage of it.

One nice aspect of running the Voodoo5 5500 in a lower end system is the fact that enabling FSAA will result in almost no performance loss. Since the video card is not able to use all its power with FSAA off in an older system due to a CPU limitation, enabling FSAA is really the only way to get the full power out of the Voodoo5 5500 PCI in an older system. The frame rate may be as low as before you upgraded to the $300 card, but the image quality will be much better.

The Voodoo5 5500 is a blessing for many users out there with higher end CPUs on an i810 motherboard. For others with lower end processors, the Voodoo5 5500 really only makes sense if FSAA is desired. Otherwise, stick with your current video card (or perhaps upgrade to a Voodoo3 3000) and look for a CPU upgrade first. With a fast PCI video card option finally out. 3dfx will win a place in even more systems.
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WhiteWashMan

if you want to lash out 70 quid now for a quick fix, get a v3 2000.
otherwise, save your money

BattlingCheese

Thanks for the replies. I might just stick with what I've got at the mo.

Offy

Lo there.

If you want ill sell u a RivaTNT2 VANTA pci 4 £50.00 but it wont make wuch diif. to what you have at the moment.