5200 or 9200?

[farscape]

Putting together a system for someone (55-60ish) who doesn't play FPS type games. Does photo editing, surfing, burning, wordprocessing, light gaming - Hoyle type card/gambling games, Sims, Gander Mountain hunting & fishing, etc. Both are prob overkill, she doesn't need gobbs of power, but want to insulate her from upping for a while. (Oh, by the way, she doesn't want a Dell.)

 

[MichaelZ]

9200SE or regular 9200? If you're choosing between 9200 and 5200, 9200 for sure. If you're choosing between 9200SE and 5200, flip a coin for it. And as you said, both are probably overkill. Motherboard with onboard graphics is already sufficient.

 

[VIAN]

Go with HP then. If you're gonna build the PC, then just build an Athlon with dual channel with a built in graphics chip. This is probably the cheapest and best solution.

All prices derived from newegg.

Athlon XP 2500+ - 75

coolermaster CP5-6J31C-01 - 8.99

Corsair Value Select Dual Kits 512MB, pc 3200 - 94 : lower the clockspeed to match the bus for optimal operation. Couldn't find slower dual kits, plus motherboard I chose doesn't support DDR400 with the best stability.

ASUS nForce 220-D A7N266-VM - 58.99 : comes with IGP and built in sound.

Western Digital 40GB 7200RPM - 53

289 dollars.

 

[hytek369]

aren't they both around the same? get the one with the better warranty

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: VIAN
Go with HP then. If you're gonna build the PC, then just build an Athlon with dual channel with a built in graphics chip. This is probably the cheapest and best solution.

All prices derived from newegg.

Athlon XP 2500+ - 75

coolermaster CP5-6J31C-01 - 8.99

Corsair Value Select Dual Kits 512MB, pc 3200 - 94 : lower the clockspeed to match the bus for optimal operation. Couldn't find slower dual kits, plus motherboard I chose doesn't support DDR400 with the best stability.

ASUS nForce 220-D A7N266-VM - 58.99 : comes with IGP and built in sound.

Western Digital 40GB 7200RPM - 53

289 dollars.

That's a nice idea. Between 9200 and FX5200, go with 9200.

 

[Omegachi]

no, theres a difference here if you play games.

the 9200SE sucks comparing to the fx5200 from MD. trust me.

 

[modedepe]

9200 will probably have a little better iq, so I'd take it. In any games they'll be roughly the same. I agree that going with nf2 integrated is the way to go if you really want to save money though.

 

[Corporate Thug]

search is your friend

 

[Marsumane]

Like people were saying below, It's overkill either way. Just get a Geforce4mx for less and call it a day. Itll handle those games just fine.

 

[tcsenter]

You're in luck, because I just got done scrutinizing <GASP!> Tom's latest VGA Charts in search of the best budget card for my tightwad self. The contenders based on my miserly price ceiling were the RADEON 9600SE, RADEON 9200 (non-SE), and FX5200 (non-Ultra), all of which I readily found priced within $10 or less of the other (128MB RAM).

Surprisingly, the RADEON 9200 (non-SE) is clearly the better of the three (again...according to Tom's latest VGA Charts).

The RADEON 9200 (non-SE) scores comparably to or substantially faster than the RADEON 9600SE in all but two or perhaps three of the graphs, and there are something like 18 benchies in the test. The 9600SE scores comparably to or faster than the FX5200 in a clear majority of benchmarks. Conclusion: the FX5200 is bested quite badly and consistently by the 9200 and, therefore, deserves to be crossed off my short list.

So the 9200 isn't a DX9 part - whoopie. The 9600SE's crippled memory bus kills any advantage it might ever hope to receive from DX9 support. Based on your description, your friend will probably be ready for a DX9 GPU around the time DX12 is released, anyway (like me).

 

[BenSkywalker]

I'd go with the 5200 for her rig based on your description of her useage if you don't want to use integrated. I'm assuming because you don't want integrated either she is going with a LCD or you want a bit better output quality?

Anyway, you mention that not upgrading for a while is a concern. With Longhorn hitting in a couple of years I assume you won't want to upgrade then? The FX has the feature set to drive the new UI in Longhorn, the 9200 doesn't.

 

[tcsenter]

Anyway, you mention that not upgrading for a while is a concern. With Longhorn hitting in a couple of years I assume you won't want to upgrade then? The FX has the feature set to drive the new UI in Longhorn, the 9200 doesn't.

True - partly!

The FX5200 will permit one to view more flash and glitter than the 9200 would on Longhorn's GUI, but it will run Longhorn just fine. The 9200 will still drive a subset of the new visual features and effects incorporated into Longhorn's GUI. With a decent DX8 GPU, you'll get flash and glitter not seen in XP, albiet less flash and glitter than you'd get with a DX9 chip.

 

[modedepe]

Surprisingly, the RADEON 9200 (non-SE) is clearly the better of the three (again...according to Tom's latest VGA Charts).
The RADEON 9200 (non-SE) scores comparably to or substantially faster than the RADEON 9600SE in all but two or perhaps three of the graphs, and there are something like 18 benchies in the test.

Interesting, that would contradict anandtech's benchmarks which show that the 9600se is almost always faster than the 9200. It also put the 9200 a slight bit above the 5200, but below the 5200 ultra.

 

[tcsenter]

Interesting, that would contradict anandtech's benchmarks which show that the 9600se is almost always faster than the 9200. It also put the 9200 a slight bit above the 5200, but below the 5200 ultra.

I looked at Anand's Fall 2003 Budget Card Roundup and the only 5200 in the test is the 5200 Ultra, whose current price puts it squarely into 9600 non-SE (128bit) territory. Its also impossible to know what core and mem clocks these cards represent, since Anand's doesn't disclose it while Tom's VGA Charts does, among other review sites.

With so much variability in core/mem speeds from one vendor to the next, even from the same vendor, Anand's results may in fact be more representative of those configurations, but there is no way to compare the results with other reviews in confidence that one is comparing clock for clock or reasonably near it.

I'm looking at a few more reviews...

 

[rogue1979]

Get a 9000 Pro, most of them are still 275/275, a few 275/250. This way you won't have to worry about a 64-bit version of the 9200 or one with really slow memory. I have a work machine that I have used with both a GF3 Ti 200 128MB, and the 9000 Pro 128MB, and the 9000 Pro was a little faster and worked better for me. Both which are faster than a 5200.

 

[tcsenter]

I'm looking at a few more reviews...

And so I have! The FX5200 isn't as shabby as I first thought, but I still recommend the R9200 over it, unless one is inordinately pre-occupied with Quake 3. The R9200 yields more than playable frame rates in Quake 3, but the FX5200 is really strong.

I have gathered benchmark scores from two different reviews where equally configured versions of the FX5200 and R9200 were used and produced some charts for comparison, which is linked below. Just about all FX5200 and R9200 models at Newegg.com are offered with mem/core clocked at 250/400.

FX5200 vs. R9200