Any Good?

[Blinkme323]

Hi, I just bought a videocard and am wondering if it is any good. I wanted to spend no more than $85 and be able to play Doom 3, HL2, and Halo on low. My system is old, but it is tweaked good and the games ran well on an ATI 9100. I was going to go with a Ti4400 for $55, but some guy offered me a 5600XT for $76 shipped with a cooler. He said it was 128 mb DDR, 256 bit, and 325/650. The specs were much better than the Ti4400 and it wa DX9 so I bought it. After I sent the money, he told me it was 256 bit core and 128 bit memory. He also said it is 235/400 and the other specs were overclocked. He already shipped me the card, so there is nothing I can do. If I don't like it I can probably sell it for what I paid for it, do you think it is a good deal?

 

[bigal40]

Well for shader intensive games like Doom3 the FX series is pretty weak. If you can get it up to 325/650 it would be a pretty decent buy for 50 bucks but will still probably be kind of slow in the newer shader intensive games.

 

[Mloot]

Personally, I would have gone with the Ti 4400. I may be wrong, but I thought most 5600xt's shipped with a 64-bit memory interface, in which case it would be alot slower than a Ti 4400. Now, this review is not the best, but it will give you an idea of what performance you might expect from the 5600xt. Both a 128-bit and 64-bit 5600xt were tested, and in almost every case the Ti 4200 (slower than the Ti 4400) absolutely eats the 5600xt for lunch. The blue bars on the graphs represent the FPS (frames-per-second) in each benchmark.

Hope that helps.

 

[Pete]

The 4400 was probably faster. The guy who sold it to you lied about the card, but you also didn't do any research (all 5600s have 128-bit memory buses at most, and the XT may even be 64-bit).

The 4400 would have been a decent step up from your 9100. The 5600XT is probably a sidestep at best at stock speeds, and assuming a 128-bit bus. If it actually works at those OCed speeds, it'll probably be faster than your 9100. I somewhat doubt it'll be faster than a 4400, but I can't be sure. Those OCed speeds sound about 5600 (not XT, not Ultra, just plain 5600) level. Search for 5600 reviews at Anandtech or elsewhere--they should also have a 4400 or 4600 to compare with.

Anyway, ask us if you want more help. Sorry to say that $56 sounds like a bit of a rip for a used 5600XT, OCed or not. But give it a try and see if you notice an improvement.