Actually, the Geforce4MX series sucks worse than any other and exists only as a devious marketing ploy by Nvidia. The geforce4mx series is a stripped down version of the Geforce4 Ti core. The main feature that was stripped was the InfinateFX II engine, which contained, amoung other things, all Pixel Shader support. As such, these cards are more architecturally comparable to the Geforce2 than a Geforce4 Ti.Zephyris wrote:I agree that the GeForce's suck ass... I have a GeForce4 MX 440....
My AMD will sometimes slow to a snail's pace... and crash... Where as the P4 wouldn't do that.
Most new games, such as POP, will require programmable Pixel Shader support. The Geforce 3 generation introduced this programable Pixel Shader (coupled with a programable Vertex shader) in what Nvidia called its infinate FX engine. Each new generation of Geforce card has had an upgrade of the same engine (with the exception of the geforce4MX series which had it removed). For the FX series of Geforce, the InfinateFX was renamed to CineFX, it still does the same thing although faster and support more instructions.
But dont take my word for it, look at the graph on Nvidias Geforce4 page and notice what the Ti has that the Mx doesnt - no support for infinateFX means no Pixel shaders means no support for most Dx9 games
.As for your computer slowing to a crawl during memory intensive operations, there is no faults in the AMD XP processor (that Im aware of) that would cause such a problem. The problem is more likely to be a bottleneck in other hardware, most likely your harddrive. Sounds like when windows is writting/reading to your swap file (part of your Harddrive set up to act as virtual ram) it is hitting a bottleneck. For a quick fix, increase your windows swapfile size, and defragment often; or if you have the resources, Format and reinstall windows.
Edit: As for anybody looking to buy a new CPU + Mobo combo in the immediate future (Siege, Deadman, Realm, et all), the strongest words of adivce I can give you is to not buy the absolute top-of-the-line stuff. You'll pay a premium price and it'll be obsolete very soon, this is always the case when buying computers, but never more so than now. This year will change all most all of the computer specs*, so your upgrade path will be cut short, stealing value from your purchase.
If you must have it today (and there is nothing wrong with that) then I reccomend the either the AMD 2.5 Barton for $85, or the 2.4ghz P4 for $164. Both will overclock to the same speed as highest models, of their respective type,with no additional cooling beside standard fan+heatsink. Your only decision is if Hyperthreading is worth an extra $80 to you (probably not) and if you believe the P4 performs better than an XP. Also, if you want to keep on the cheap, try for a refurb Mobo from Newegg? Before you commit cash to anything, post your purchase plan here so we can scrutinize it.
*AMD switching number of pins, BTX form factor, PCI Xpress, etc...
