Recommended Desktop Graphic Card for Win98SE ?

[Old_Style]

As the topic says, I want to upgrade my graphic card. Searching the net I found lots of tests, but most of them only interested in gaming performance, which is not interesting for me.

Currently Im using an ATI Radeon 9200 128MB, which is not bad for desktop only. But browsing the net with sites that do have a lot of images it starts bucking and that can be very annoying.

So what AGP-card would you recommend to use with WIN98 Desktop-applications nowadays?

• It should be with passive cooling when possible like the Radeon Ultimate, which I read might get very hot on duty unfortunatelly.
  
• It should not consume too much power. Are there any graphic cards that use something like AMD cool n quiet? So that the GPU slows down when idle and speeds up when used?
  

[BenoitRen]

An ATI Radeon 9200 should fulfill all your non-gaming needs, really. If you have problems with sites that have a lot of images, it's not the card's fault.

[alexanrs]

This whole "slowdown when there are too many images" sounds more like the processor struggling, or a slow browser or whatever....

I mean, the card can only help with the blitting (when browsing normal stuff), and a 9200 should do that pretty fast, to the point I doubt it is the bottleneck)

[Sysdll]

I used a 9200 with 98SE for years without problems with any images or dx8 casual games. The video card web sites will say this isn’t a good card but that’s only because it won’t play the most demanding 3D games.

Like the above posters said it’s probably something else.

But you asked for a recommendation. There are several companies on Ebay (I don’t know if forum rules allow me to mention their names) that sell new old stock video cards at very reasonable prices. Buy new not used so you don’t get someone else’s failed over clocking experiment.

I recently purchased a Radeon X800 SE 4x/8x agp. It’s a real sleeper, under $25.00, a step up from a 9800XT and it works with Windows 9x. It also draws only two more watts than a 9200 so you won’t have to upgrade your power supply. It does have a fan though.

If your board has a 2x agp slot then I’d recommend a 9700 pro.

There are new ultimate/passive cooling versions of 9700 and 9800 pros available from these sellers from time to time. These cards will require more power so check the ATI site for requirements.

I’ll leave the nVidia recommendations to someone else.

Edited February 9, 2009 by Sysdll

[chromatic47]

I can vouch for nvidia GeForce FX 5200, an older AGP card circa 2003 which can still be bought new for cheap. They come in different versions. Mine is from EVGA, 128mb, has DVI, D-SUB and composite video outs and is passively cooled. Gaming performance aside (unneeded on this system), this card is working flawlessly for internet, Photoshop, etc. and for YouTube and other streaming video in full screen mode. It's feeding dual widescreen monitors at 1680x1050 without a problem. Might be worth looking at.

Edited February 9, 2009 by chromatic47

[Old_Style]

Thanks for all the good advice!

I have always been using ATI-Cards so I guess I will stay with ATI and upgrade to a low profile x700 or something similar.