[tech] Re: [ucc] Minutes 10/08, graphics cards

[James Cox]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Nick Bannon wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 10, 2004 at 02:01:43PM +0800, James Cox wrote:
> > >  - Buy graphics cards for thinterms
>
> Because they're still unstable? or because they're old and slow and
> have no dedicated VRAM?

Not really old (they do have quite good CPUs, after all) but they are slow
with no dedicatede VRAM, yeah.

>
> > We've got 3 choices:
> >
> > Geforce 4MX, around $70
> > Advantage: half height card
> > Disadvantage: sucks
>
> About 4x faster than the current onboard GeForce2 MX?
>
> > Radeon 9200SE, also around $70
> > Advantage: half height card, drivers are actually pretty good for ATi
> 	     Free drivers.
> > Disadvantage: Sucks at OpenGL in particular
>
> About 4x faster than the current onboard GeForce2 MX?
>
> > Geforce FX5200, around $90
> > Advantage: pretty good at OpenGL (by far the most powerful)
> > Disadvantage: requires putting thinterms into proper ATX cases
> > Advantage: can eBay off the "cool little cases A+++++++++!!!!1"
>
> About 6x faster than the current onboard GeForce2 MX?

Hard to tell exact performance increases, since nobody ever benchmarks
crappy onboard graphics. Andrew is going to bring in his FX5200 and we'll
try it out with the latest NVidia drivers, though

>
> If we're swapping cases and ebay'ing anyway, what would it cost to buy
> new low-end machines, selling the old ones as working systems?

I don't think it'd be worth it, really. The CPU is still good, 2.6 is
quite stable (if slow at OpenGL), and the cases are the most expensive
component anyway. Prices for complete systems on eBay are quite low,
anyway.

~Coxy