best 3,3volt agp gaming card please

[Wombat]

He's confused. He doesn't really know what he's talking about. 8x transfers require the 1.5V signalling. Other than that-

Most cards will handle both voltages. The ones that don't are keyed so that they won't fit in a slot they can't handle the voltage from.

[Ovi]

Yup, my mobo is based on the 440bx too (2x AGP, 3.3 v) and the GeForce2 MX 400 (which is 4x) works just fine! So Frank, you can go ahead and get the GF2 MX 400, just stick with a reputed brand!
Cheers
Ovi

[Frank Marshall]

Is the Palit Daytona a decent MX400 card?

@ ovi
How did you find out your SDRAM was running on a 64-bit bus and not 128?

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Originally posted by Rob(QG)
Most AGP graphics cards should support 3.3v operation.

Certainly all the ATI one's do except for the Fire GL X1.

http://www.ati.com/support/faq/agpchart.html

LOL. A FireGL on a 440BX

[Ovi]

Originally posted by Frank Marshall

@ ovi
How did you find out your SDRAM was running on a 64-bit bus and not 128?

Hi Frank
I used Rivatuner, which is an overclocking tool for nVidia cards, to find out the bus width. Actually, I noticed that my 3DMark2001 fill rate scores were low, and were in the range of GeForce 2 mx 64 bit memory versions. This led me to think that maybe my GeForce2 MX 400 had 64 bit memory too. RivaTuner confirmed by suspicions. Additionally, I found some info on www.xbitlabs.com regarding this issue. Apparently, GeForce 2 MX400 based cards with 64 bit SDRAM have been quitely introduced by many manufacturers.....some specify it clearly, some don't.......and of course, these cards are cheaper that the regular 128 bit SDRAM ones.
There's another way to find out if your GeForce2 MX400 uses 64 bit SDRAM, according to X-bitlabs. First, examine the memory chips on the card, they have a string of numbers and letters below the manufacturer's name. Somewhere in this string, there will be either a 32 or a 16, indicating whether the chip has a bus width of 16 bits or 32. Next, count the number of memory chips on the board and multiply this number with the bus width of each chip. So in my case, it was <b>16</b>(bus width of each chip)<b>x 4</b>(no of chips)<b>= 64</b>. Also, the number of pins is less on a 16 bit memory chip than on a 32 bit one.
This way, you can check any GeForce2 MX 400 just by looking at it, whatever the brand. Hope that helps!
Cheers
Ovi

[SuRGV]

My Brother has been playing Spiderman on his P3@600 with ASUS V7700 (Gefore 2 GTS 32 MB) on Gygabyte BX440 mobo and it's been perfectly smooth. I think you shouldn't get Geforce MX if you can find Geforce 2 GTS.

[Frank Marshall]

Thanks for the tips Ovi.

And SuRGV, I agree a GTS or Ultra GF2 would be preferable but I can't find any new examples here on the Gold Coast, Australia; at least not cheaper than a GF4. We may consider buying second-hand.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. I'll post back about what we ended up with.

[Frank Marshall]

The Palit Daytona GF2 MX400 64MB is going here in Oz for only AUD80 (~USD50). It appears to have the 128bit memory bus on the 64MB SDRAM model. Next step up around here seems to be the GF4 MX440s but they're currently 50% dearer at AUD120.

Thanks again everyone.