I'd change my mind on the 256MB and go for 128MB; the 9250 is nothing more than a lesser version of a lesser version.

Go for an 8500 with 128MB of memory or a 9100 with 128MB of memory.

These two cards can do two textures per clockcycle. The 9000/9200/9250 cards can only do one texture per clockcycle.

The Radeon 8500 runs at 275MHz/275MHz and the 8500 LE runs at 250MHz/250MHz. The Radeon 9100 runs at 250MHz/250MHz.

Check out this site, it has an overview of graphics cards. Scroll down to the ATi section and compare the 8500/9000/9100/9200/9250 cards.
http://www.area3d.net/overview.php

The best option is to go for an 8500 or 9100 with 128MB. If you absolutely must have 256MB then get yourself a 9200 PRO and nothing else because the other 9200/9250 cards are unfortunately severely limited by their memory speed. (I own one of the worst cards of all; a 9250 with 166MHz memory )

Bare in mind that of the 'lesser' versions of the 92x0 series, some have a 64bit memorybus instead of a 128bit bus. Which you don't want! (the 64bit bus that is)

Oh, before I forget; the 8500/9000/9100/9200/9250 cards all use the same core. ATi didn't bother to design a new low-end core, they just used their old high-end core .

Score, I'll definately look into this  

Origionally I was going to run 3 5500's.... 2 PCI and my AGP. My stupid motherboard killed that dream for me  

I was just going to use the PCI cards for multiple monitors, I wasn't really planning on using the secondary monitors for gaming beucase hte PCI bus is significantly slower than the AGP bus so wouldnt the graphics not be as compareble to my 5500AGP?

I have this ghetto no-name 16mb card in there now for my multi monitor display and a redeon 7000 for my primary AGP... I truthfully haven't even tried playing 3d games on it yet because all I cared about was my 5500 lol. Apparently the 7000 does have FSAA becuase I did a lil internet research and found out it's not too bad, but still not my 5500 

radeon 9250 is really hard crap. i wouldnt buy that for 40bucks... better save some money and buy then a used geforce 6600. much better performance and image quality...

Hi guys, Obi, Nitrox. Haven't been in in a long time. Well, I just stick with the voodoo 3. Same Clock Speeds if not a tad bit higher (compared to Voodo 4, or Voodoo 5).

I have a seperate pc I use for 3dfx voodoo gaming, just because, a voodoo card and a DX8 or DX9 card just doesn't mix. The more powerful one is chooseen as primary, and trying to change the voodoo as primary is a big pain in the butt, which only some users here have done (there is a topic, something like using a voodoo 1 with a ATI video card or somethin). Seperate pc is better, especially with 3dfx games.

I had a ATI 8500dv a-i-w and it's default core was 229.5Mhz, memory 193.91Mhz (or might be 191.93Mhz, one of the 2). 275Mhz would be great, but they're much slower. Above 250Mhz for Core and you get major artifacts and problems on your screen. 275Mhz is more like a GeForce 4 or ATI 9200 or somethin.

Obi, hey, I read somewhere that the GeForce 3, had the 3dfx chip in it that can be turned on so you can play some games in 3dfx with just a GF3. Can you shed some light on that. I've been pondering about that since back in october, roughly last time I posted here. If you don't know, I'm sure Gdonovan and Falcon knows. <-good guys with infinite 3dfx knowledge : P
I too am disapointed with nVidia, they gobbled up 3dfx and didn't bother to continue their fine work.

Well, if I want to do some heavy gaming, I just use my current pc, wich I use a ATI x800xt a-i-w agp. Pretty darn fast and plays games decently. If I want to use DOS, or Windows 9x programs or a game that uses 3dfx like Need for Speed 2 SE, I use my other pc. Bought the parts and voodoo card cheap on ebay. So a lot less hassle with incompatible programs and 2 video card conflicts.

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Not 'entirely' nonsense - it's just put the wrong way...

YES, there was NO NvIDIA GFX card that had any 3Dfx chips on it, but you could use the GLiDE DLL files with a GeForce 3 to run GLiDE games...

...only VERY VERY slowly!

As for my recommendations for a new GFX card...

Radeon 9700Pro 128MB
Radeon 9800Pro 128MB

Either of these will be available at a good price and offer nice performance as a mid-range card.

comptech_69

My vote is for something like Radeon 9600 at least. And if you will spend 100 bucks instead of 40 on that 9250 crap - you can buy GeForce 6600 which will be very fast for it's money (and with good overclocking capabilities too!). Trust me, current NVIDIA solutions are really better than ATI in some market segments.


Obi-Wan

Nice card! The fastest AGP video ever made - a collector item too. I still didn't get my hands on it, though I have another interesting X800s in my collection - Sapphire X800XL 512MB PCIe, Sapphire X800XL AGP (with Rialto AGP bridge), ATI Radeon X800 CrossFire, pre-production ATI X800XT-PE AGP and rare ATI All-In-Wonder X800XT AGP. Actually, russian ATI office promised me to find X850XT-PE AGP but a bit later...

Funny, just a year ago X800 were pretty fast and now their performance is nothing in comparison with X1900XTX + CrossFire combination... I'm playing with those for a week now and really impressed with the results!