Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
ok.. i've narrowed it down to 2 budget cards: 9200 and 9600SE
The 9600SE has DX9 and OGL2 support, but is only a 64bit memory interface. It also costs $16 more.
The 9200 is obviously $16 less and has a 128bit memory interface. It lacks support for DX9 and OGL2. Its core speed is also 250mhz, versus 325 on the 9600.
which card would be the best bang/buck? i'm really not looking to run D3 and HL2 at 1600x1200 w/ 4xFSAA, 16x ansiotropic filtering, etc.
Fenixgoon
First of all, that box for the 9200, shows "DX9 compatible". That's not the same as "compliant", or "DX9 supported in hardware". The Radeon 9200 VPU is only DX8.1 in hardware. It does not support PS2.0 or VS2.0, only 1.1 and 1.4 respectively, IIRC.
That said, I bought the FIC Radeon 9200 (non-SE), 128-bit memory, 64MB DDR, 250/200Mhz core/mem clocks, big passive heatsink on VPU, no cooling on RAM. After installing the ocfaq.com softmodded drivers, I could overclock, but not to any reasonable level that actually led to improved performance, without encountering artifacts in games and crashes in W2K. (The lack of active cooling on the VPU, and lack of any cooling on RAM, contributed to the lack of overclockability, I'm sure.)
Performance-wise, it's actually pretty decent. I'm able to play UT2K4 at 1024x768, without a lot of the extra eye-candy features enabled, but I get a fairly stable > 30fps gameplay. Not 60fps though. It's mostly acceptable for me, and I'm pretty happy with it. Definately a step up from a PCI TNT1 or a GF2 MX AGP.
However, trying out the FarCry demo... made me cry. Should have called it FarSlideShow. Unplayably slow, on an AMD XP2000 CPU with 768MB of PC2700 memory, even after dropping down the res and features. Pretty-looking though, even at 7fps.
Note that, on graphics cards, onboard video-memory bandwidth is probably the highest indicator of performance. My card had a specified 6.4GB/s bandwidth. A card with similarly-clocked memory, but only 64-bit memory, would have probably half the performance. A GF FX 5200 card with 128-bit memory, is both DX9-compliant (not just compatible), and with similar memory clocks, should show similar performance, with the added ability to play some DX9 titles. (FarCry probably not, due to performance reasons. But at least with a GF FX 5200 card, you would get a much-prettier slideshow.)
That being said, I absolutely *love* the dual-monitor support of the Radeon 9200, and the TV-out claims to support 1024x768 too.
I would love to trade in my FIC 64MB card for the 128MB ECS one with VIVO, I could save a slot and pull this WinTV PCI relic out.
🙂 Thanks for the link, maybe I'll sell this one to a friend and buy that one after all.
Btw, I agree with the others, if you really want to play DX9 games, look for a 9550, which is basically a slightly down-clocked Radeon 9600 non-pro version, which can often be overclocked back up to 9600 non-pro speeds. Also, some GF FX 5200's are a bit more overclockable than others. But the Ti4200 (non-DX9 compliant though it is), clearly has the most bang-for-the-buck out of all of these cards.
