Cheap card (5200/9200se)

[Bombastik]

Greets,

I have 2 questions for this forum.

I've recently upgraded my A7V133+Tb-C1.1Ghz to a AN7+Barton-2800+.

I've retained my GF4Ti4600, but I need to buy a cheap but usable video card for the A7V133+Tb-C.

I was wondering either a Radeon 9200se or a Fx5200, plain-vanilla, but the thing is:

- Which one is the best bang-for-buck? There aren't alot of comparsions like 9200se VS Fx5200.
- Both of the are AGP 8x, but the A7V133 is a VIA KT133A board, thus it only suports up to AGP 4x. Will both these cards run correctly on AGP 4x?



-- I did use to have a Signature line, but it was to lame, so I removed it and replaced by this crap --

 

[cleeve]

Both of these cards are really, really poor choices for the money.

You can find a Geforce4 Ti4200 that will kick both of these cards to death in their sleep... it can be found for very cheap online ($75-ish); if you can afford it, search out a cheap 9600 PRO, which is the best card in existance in the bottom price range.

both the 9600se and the 5200(most are 64-bit anyway), are really, really bad cards. The 9600SE is a 9600 with half the memory speed (yuck), and the 5200... well, it just aint any good, mate.

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 322/322)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2600+</b></font color=red> <i>(o/c 2400+ w/143Mhz fsb)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b></font color=red>

 

[hogfather]

Well he's talking about the 9200se, not 9600se

the 9200se is god awful. The 5200 is less awful. It should be illegal to keep producing increasingly crap cards, just to expand the line. FFS, the 5200 is as crap as yoou'll ever need! its like Nvidia releasing that MX4000 GF4 card recently, 8mb/s bandwidth. Makes you want to shoot the CEO, because some poor sod will buy this rubbish 🙁

XP2000, 256ddr 2100ram, GF4 MX440, XP Pro

 

[etp777]

I would get the 5200 over the 9200SE, but unless you're going for a good 5200 Ultra, like the BFG(was very happy with mine), get the Ti4200 isntead. Gives better bang for the buck in that price range. Any of these should work fine on an AGP 4x board. Was running the 5200 ultra on a P3 700 board with agp 4x with no problems. hrmm, or maybe 2x. Either way, you should have no trouble

 

[cleeve]

Most cheap 5200's are 64-bit cards, which means they're actually worse than 9200SE's, although not by much (as they both suck my rectum)

If you *have* to get a 5200 or 9200, make sure they have a 128 bit memory interface.

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 322/322)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2600+</b></font color=red> <i>(o/c 2400+ w/143Mhz fsb)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b></font color=red>

 

[Bombastik]

Thank you all for you input.

I actually made a mistake, my card is Ti4200, not a 4600.

I know that the 5200/9200se are really a piece of marketting crap, but they are dirty cheap here.

The thing is that this PC is for my father, which isn't going to use 3D at all, but since I have to buy a video card, might as well buy a cheap one with some 3D capabilities.

To buy anything over a fx5200 or a 9200, i'd rather buy a 5700 or a 9600XT as a replacement for my Ti4200 and put the Ti4200 in the old PC.

But I really don't want to spend much (around 60/70€) and a Ti4200 is hard to come-by unless it is second-hand.

Besides I'm quite content with the Ti4200 and it still performs quite well, so I really don't NEED a new more powerfull card.

I'll give it some thought though (about a 9600XT or a 9700)

-- I did use to have a Signature line, but it was to lame, so I removed it and replaced by this crap --

 

[baldurga]

Well, I was going to suggest the 9200se as it only cost $40 at newegg. Anandtech even suggested in their budget config.

But after seeing you show some prices in euros ... :frown: well, in Europe we have higher prices for all hardware. If you don't need any 3D powerfull what about looking into an old card at eBay or similar? Your father is not even going to play Quake 3 on it ...


Still looking for a <b>good online retailer</b> in Spain :frown:

 

[Bombastik]

Wish I could help you Baldruga, I'm from Portugal, so I'm sympathetic with your problem.

Anyway, I've now reconsidered and I'm going to a R9600XT. I'm making a deal with a friend of mine that owns a Asus GF4MX440 and wants to upgrade.

Quite luckly for me he works closely with a PC Hardware store so I'm going to exchange my Ti4200 with his MX440 PLUS purchasing a R9600XT (I don't like top of line products) for little money.

This way he will get a Ti4200 and I will get a MX440 plus a R9600XT for a small ammount of money.

The problem now is that my CRT is dying fast on me and I need to buy a new one, but there aren't any decent CRT around, so I'll need to buy a TFT.

Buying a 17" TFT means 1280x1024, and then playing at 1280x1024 with a R9600XT maybe akward.

Anyone knows if a R9600XT can play well at 1280x1024... I'll gladly dispense any kind of FSAA since I don't really dig eye-candy that shaves more FPS than it should.

-- I did use to have a Signature line, but it was to lame, so I removed it and replaced by this crap --

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Depends on the games you play. I have an R9600Pro (which OCs far beyond XT speeds) and in some games 1280x1024 is a little hard to get consistent frames. FarCry would be an example. For pretty much everything else until FraCRy (except the poorly coded HALO) 1280x1024 should be ok, just don't expect above 45-60fps in most games. If you can overclock the memory a bit which should help alot. Ocing the core will help a bit, but not as much as the memory.

I run UT2K4 on my R9600Pro with normal settings @ 1280x1024, and I have my card clocked at 468/333, and I see no lag or hiccups, except for lan/dsl lag. Turning up the texture details makes my card chug in some maps at even 1024x768.

You should be ok on most current games, it'll just be future games that will feel the pain of 128bit memory and 4 pipes, but you'd have had that problem with the GF4ti also.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[jammydodger]

I was in a very similar situation to you recently and I ended up getting a radeon8500, you can get them for £45 at <A HREF="http://www.overclockers.co.uk" target="_new">http://www.overclockers.co.uk</A> if they still ahev any left. They are about equivalent to the Ti4200's, they do not support DX9, but the other cards you suggested are too slow to take advantage of it anyway.

Might be worth a look.

P4 2.6@3.38
512Mb PC4000
2x120Gb 7200.7 in RAID0
Waterchill KT12-L30
Abit AI7
Ge-Force4 Ti4200

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The R9600XT will do DX9 just fine, often better than the FX59XX. 😎

I think his current deal is just fine. His dad can use the MX and he can use the R9600XT.

The R8500 would have alot of trouble keeping up at 1280x1024 in modern games IMO.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[TheRod]

The R8500 would have alot of trouble keeping up at 1280x1024 in modern games IMO.

You are right! I have a good old highly overclockable R8500LE (with high-speed ram modules) and it starts to lag in new game. I run FarCry fairly well at 800x600 with mixed quality (I balanced the adv. options for best stability/perf/IQ).

But I would not try it at 1280x1024, this would kill my GPU!


--
Would you buy a potato powered chipset?