radeon 9200 slower than the old 9000 Pro WTF?

[nemesismk2]

"Conclusion
It's clear that this is the same RADEON 9000 just under another name. Thankfully, Gigabyte has equipped its card with VIVO to differentiate it from the previous RADEON 9000. The price is at the level of the older 9000 cards.

However, the situation is not as simple as it should be for customers because the RADEON 9200 is slower than the RADEON 9100 (former RADEON 8500LE), and the higher index of the 9200 may confuse them.

Highs:

Good 3D performance for the entry-level sector, and full DirectX 8.1 support;
High build quality;
Reliable and stable operation;
Decent overclockability;
VIVO support;
Lows:

The 128MB card has the same performance as the RADEON 9000, and it makes no sense to rename the card because of the born-dead AGP 8x function;
RADEON 9000, 9100 and 9200 may be confusing consumers. "

click here for the results from a recent digit life review

Here's another review which shows the exact same thing:-

sapphire radeon 9200 review at beyond3d

 

[nemesismk2]

What no ATI fan boys saying it's ok for ATI to screw over customers who think the radeon 9200 is faster than the previous generations? Hell the 9200 isn't even any faster than the radeon 8500le, 8500, radeon 9000 pro and radeon 9100. Comments?

 

[BoberFett]

The 9000 was slower than the 9100, and the 9200 is almost the same as the 9000. Were you expecting anything different

The GF4 MX was slower than a GF3. What's your point? That companies are deceitful? Welcome to the world of marketing.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
The 9000 was slower than the 9100, and the 9200 is almost the same as the 9000. Were you expecting anything different

The GF4 MX was slower than a GF3. What's your point? That companies are deceitful? Welcome to the world of marketing.

Well I had hoped that the 9200 would atleast be faster than the 9000 Pro and give the FX5200 some competition in the budget market. Don't ATI have any new idea's for the budget market apart from releasing slower versions of existing chipsets? Atleast Nvidia has released something new which is actually faster than the GF4 MX it was designed to replace.

Can you imagine the new Radeon 9300? I hear it's using the Rage128 chipset, ATI must have a few of those lying around somewhere they could use!

 

[Vonkhan]

ever tried Oc-ing a 900Pro? it blazez!!! reach 303/301 with stock cooling and wud have gone higher if i didnt have my finals and a trade for a 9700pro. best bang for the budget buck

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: BoberFett
The 9000 was slower than the 9100, and the 9200 is almost the same as the 9000. Were you expecting anything different

The GF4 MX was slower than a GF3. What's your point? That companies are deceitful? Welcome to the world of marketing.

Well I had hoped that the 9200 would atleast be faster than the 9000 Pro and give the FX5200 some competition in the budget market. Don't ATI have any new idea's for the budget market apart from releasing slower versions of existing chipsets? Atleast Nvidia has released something new which is actually faster than the GF4 MX it was designed to replace.

Can you imagine the new Radeon 9300? I hear it's using the Rage128 chipset, ATI must have a few of those lying around somewhere they could use!

The 5200 is the budget end of a brand new chip. Nvidia is behind ATI on their release, the 5x00 line was supposed to be out long ago.

The 9200 is their 6 month chip refresh. It's a similar product, but cheaper for them to replace meaning higher profits for the same speed chip.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Try reading the review, the 9200 Pro will be 300/300 (faster core and clock than the official retail 8500, 275/275), that review is of a 9200 which is 250/200, ofcourse its going to be slower than a 9000 Pro when you have to realize that the 9200 is practically a rebadged 9000 with a few changes to get the most performance out of the lower cost process to manufacture the 9200.

9200 vs 9000 would be "fair" while a 9200 Pro vs 9000 Pro would be "fair", not a 9200 vs 9000 Pro.

 

[Blastman]

I think ATI should have used the 9600 as the 9200 replacement - then they then would have had a full DX9 budget card. Stock, the 9600 pro is slower than the 9500pro (overclocking seems to even things out between because the 9600 overclocks better but that is a different matter). The 9200 like the 9000 is only a DX8 card, but this is probably not a huge deal as budget cards will likely choke on full DX9 enabled games anyway and DX9 will run without the features on these cards anyway.

The 9600 (non-pro) clocked 325/200 still has the potential to be a real good budget card. The GPU is much cheaper to manufacture than the 9500 and with cheap 200mhz memory it shouldn?t be much more expensive than even a 9000. Since the 9600 is on the new 0.13 fab process they are incredible overclockers. Hopefully the memory on the stock 9600 is at least ?4ns ? it should then run 260Mhz without much problem, a 30% increase. The GPU should overclock 30% easily too- 325-->425. With both the memory and GPU overclcoked 30% the 9600 is going to see a significant performance increase.

40% ? ? 200 -> 280Mhz for the memory and 325 -> 455 GPU are within realm of possibilities here too.

Smokin!

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: Blastman
I think ATI should have used the 9600 as the 9200 replacement - then they then would have had a full DX9 budget card. Stock, the 9600 pro is slower than the 9500pro (overclocking seems to even things out between because the 9600 overclocks better but that is a different matter). The 9200 like the 9000 is only a DX8 card, but this is probably not a huge deal as budget cards will likely choke on full DX9 enabled games anyway and DX9 will run without the features on these cards anyway.

The 9600 (non-pro) clocked 325/200 still has the potential to be a real good budget card. The GPU is much cheaper to manufacture than the 9500 and with cheap 200mhz memory it shouldn?t be much more expensive than even a 9000. Since the 9600 is on the new 0.13 fab process they are incredible overclockers. Hopefully the memory on the stock 9600 is at least ?4ns ? it should then run 260Mhz without much problem, a 30% increase. The GPU should overclock 30% easily too- 325-->425. With both the memory and GPU overclcoked 30% the 9600 is going to see a significant performance increase.

40% ? ? 200 -> 280Mhz for the memory and 325 -> 455 GPU are within realm of possibilities here too.

Smokin!

You can't call the 9600 a budget video card because even the radeon 9500 costs $130. How much does the 9600 cost anyway, I can't find any mention of it anywhere?

The huge deal about a DX9 supported budget video card IS because it's never been done before. ATI's budget video cards are all DX8 which IMO will make them unsellable to the general computer user compared to the FX5200 with it's DX9 support.

 

[Deeko]

grow up nemisis...nvidia is NOT your good.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: Deeko
grow up nemisis...nvidia is NOT your good.

Your mummy must be so proud of your spelling!

 

[dguy6789]

Yea, The 9200 from what i have heard, is a 9000 pro with 8X functionality. Right now, 8X has little performance gains over 4X, but in the future, when that bandwith is needed, the performance will be up there, above ANY 4X card in theory. You all know about Memory swapping, swapping space for the harddrive is painfully slow. The video card will run out of enough VRAM, so it will have to go through the AGP slot, witch 4X has a steady speed of 1GB/s. If it is continually swapping, think how fast 1GB/s of usable memory bandwith will play your games. Thats when 8X comes in. Doubling the speed to 2.12 GB/s, is is twice as fast, meaning swapping will be much less painful. In the future when cards neeed to swap, a 8 X 9200 would mop the floor with ANY 4X mode card, i dont card if you compare it with a 9800 Pro as long as its in 4X mode, what good is a 9800 pro with 1GB/s of memory bandwith? So, in conclusion it is slowernow , but you be happier later.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: Blastman
The huge deal about a DX9 supported budget video card IS because it's never been done before. ATI's budget video cards are all DX8 which IMO will make them unsellable to the general computer user compared to the FX5200 with it's DX9 support.

It isn't a huge deal, there was a time when a budget DX7 card first saw the light of day, it was bound to happen, nVidia just decided to release a DX9 board that isn't even powerful/fast enough for all DX8 games. Generally, people that "eat up" the 5200/9200 class cards have no clue about DX nor do they care about it. All that they care about is whether or not the video card they get is attached to a popular name brand "OOOOOoo!!! I've got an nVidia GeForce FX!!!" "OH BOY!!! I've got a Radeon!!!" There's a reason why the GeForce MX can be such a dominant force, even the crappy 32MB SDR GeForce 4 MXs can sell themselves. People that "eat up" these budget cards will see the DX7 or DX8 but not know what in the world it means, nor will they have any clue that the number next to DX is low or not.

The 5200 probably will be more popular than the 9200 but that's because nVidia still is higher up on the food chain despite ATI obtaining some larger and shaper claws and teeth. ATI probably will only gain ground if their more powerful cards can gain them ever favorable tanacious reputation. There is a reason why ATI and nVidia put so much research and development into the biggest budget flagships. They definately don't make buckets of cash off of their flagships, but their flagships are impressive and will definately sell their name making a lot of indirect profits.

nVidia is sitting fairly well because their lead is so well built up they could probably have one or two more NV30 incidents and still be able to pull out of it, ATI would really need to do their homework along with a ton of extra credit in order to knock nVidia off the hill.

 

[BoberFett]

If the general public cared about DX compatibility, the GF4MX line wouldn't have sold at all. DX7 in the days of DX8 cards.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
If the general public cared about DX compatibility, the GF4MX line wouldn't have sold at all. DX7 in the days of DX8 cards.

What helped the Geforce4 MX sell so well was the Geforce4 part of it's name, if they had used say Geforce3 MX it wouldn't of sold half as well as it did. It was also never mentioned on the GF4 MX boxes that it only supported DX7 for a good reason.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: BoberFett
If the general public cared about DX compatibility, the GF4MX line wouldn't have sold at all. DX7 in the days of DX8 cards.

What helped the Geforce4 MX sell so well was the Geforce4 part of it's name, if they had used say Geforce3 MX it wouldn't of sold half as well as it did. It was also never mentioned on the GF4 MX boxes that it only supported DX7 for a good reason.

You aren't making sense. If the GF4 part of the GF4MX sold it and people had no idea about DX compatibility, the the 9x00 part of 9100 and 9200 will sell it to the same people who have no idea about DX compatibility. Which is most people.

 

[Pete]

The 9000/9200 series provides pretty good competition to the 5200 already. Hopefully we'll see it die out, though, once ATi gets RV350 (9600) out in volume. 9500 is $130 because it uses the R300 core, which is big (100M transistors, 150nm), expensive, and in short supply. 9600 should be able to go much lower as the RV350 is smaller (~60M transistors, 130nm) and doesn't need external power. With any luck, we should see 64MB 9600's at $100 within two months.

 

[Pete]

Not to excuse ATi's questionable naming system, but the fact that 9100's are more expensive than 9200's should be a clue as to which is the faster card. Same applies to 9500/9600.