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GeForce FX 5200 Reviewed
EconolineCrush writes "Tech Report has a great in-depth review of NVIDIA's budget GeForce FX 5200, which brings full DirectX 9 support down to an amazing sub-$70 price point. Any budget graphics card capable of running NVIDIA's gorgeous Dawn is impressive on its own, but when put under the microscope, the GeForce FX 5200 looks more like an exercise in marketing spin than a real revolution for budget graphics cards."
I wouldn't say the always crappy... The original mx was just as good as me original geforce-sdr at 1/4 the price. You really can't beat that.
Does this honestly surprise anyone in the least?
THINK!
If the low end was worth the PCB is was printed on, there goes the market for the higher-end (and higher-margin) stuff.
TODO: Something witty here...
You said it yourself.
It's a budget card.
No leaps and bounds in terms of graphics card techonology progress will be found, otherwise, it wouldn'b be a budget card.
Besides, they have to put a product out, so that they keep customer awareness on their products and not on ATI's, considering how the latest NVIDIA flagship product performs...
/. Where the truth
Once my desktop's graphics card had more memory than my laptop's system memory, I knew the graphics hardware development was going a weird route.
The other indicators were: craphics cards that need external power plugs and graphics cards that need more than one slotplug for its cooler fan.
Fans, anyway, are the work of the devil and the main reason why computers are driving me nuts these days.
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You may like my a cappella music
If anything will be the downfall of NVIDIA, it will be the fact that nobody but a hardware weenie can figure out what card is better based on the age/name without a secret decoder ring.
Seriously.. what average person would know that an a Geforce 3 TI200 was better than a Geforce 4 MX400. I mean.. geforce 4 sound better, right?
Likewise, who would think that an "old" Geforce 4 TI4200 is way better than a new Geforce FX 5200.
Please, NVIDIA, can you come up with some names that actually convey to people whether they're buying the 'Value' version of your graphics card, or the 'Professional/Platinum' version.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think there's something wrong with the ti4200 beating out the FX 5200 in every test?
Or is the FX the new MX line?
If 1 fps framerates are your idea of "running". then yes, DX9 will substitute for it using the software Reference Rasterizer.
Dawn uses pixel shaders, which (as the name implies) are programs that execute for EVERY pixel being rendered, There is NO way to emulate that in software and still get decent frame rates, no matter how good your CPU is.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
And the big secret is...
The FX 5200 was being compared to an old budget card. The 9000 pro has been replaced(for a while now) by the 9100 and 9200 cards which are faster! Not to mention that you can get a 128 meg version for 74$ just 5$ more than that card(at gameve.com).
I found that those small GPU fans produce the most noise (and with the highest frequency) in my work PCs, so I am not going to buy any fan-cooled GPU. FX 5200 is the only modern option I know of that does not have fan, so it is on my list if I ever decide to upgrade my GeForce MX 200 (which works fine given I don't play games much).
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install
The submitter said: the GeForce FX 5200 looks more like an exercise in marketing spin than a real revolution for budget graphics cards.
Tech-report said: The GeForce FX 5200 isn't as capable a performer as its feature list might suggest, but that doesn't mean cards based on the chip aren't worth picking up... The GeForce FX 5200 is a great feature-rich card for anyone that's not looking for the best budget gaming option.
Sheesh, why not let the article speak for itself and spare us the lame and inaccurate editorialising. It's not "an exercise in marketing spin", nVidia have just got a bit behind the curve and ended up producing a card slower than the Radeon 9000 and only very slightly cheaper. The choice between them depends on the features and price point you want, with the Radeon 9000 probably the best choice for most people.
No need for the conspiracy theories. nVidia's decision to go for directx 9 across their whole range might be arguable, but it's silly to claim they did so just to mislead people somehow.
Welcome to the real world. nVidia simply cannot compete with similar offerings by ATI at this point in time. Although the GeForce FX 5200 may be DX9 aimed at the masses, the performance isn't. Personally, I'd be more inclined to get an ATI based card, namely a 9000/9100/9200 series based card, even though they are "only" DX8.1.
In terms of DX9, the only smart thing would be to get a 9500/9600 Pro if you're looking for something in the middle end, and a 9700/9800 Pro if you're looking high-end.
I'm on a 9700 Pro right now myself, and there's no way that I'd consider any nVidia product at this moment in time. Maybe sometime in the future (and no, I am not an nVidiot or a fanATIc).
Actually, from the looks of it, that card is quite good in workstation apps. So, if you want to build a cheap Maya computer (yeah, right!), then this card is for you.
Of course, if you are going to be buying Maya in the first place, you might as well get the high-end Quadro, since it only costs a few hundred dollars as opposed to Maya at $2000 or $7000.