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."

Comments

A waste but still cheap.

[Tweakmeister]

As the poster states...looks like mostly marketing spin in terms of performance. "So, while the GeForce FX 5200 is technically capable of all sorts of DirectX 9-class eye candy, I have to question just how well the card will handle future DirectX 9 games and applications. After all, a slideshow filled with DirectX 9 eye candy is still a slide show." Throw some fancy "big boy" names on a box without the performance to back it up.

Just to meet a release schedule?

[AlabamaMike]

Wonder if they dropped this on the market just to keep the steady stream of products rolling? Even if the performance isn't totally up to par, you've gotta give them this: $70 for a graphics accelerator that can perform this well is still an achievement. I can still remember paying $200 for my first MonsterFX. Now that seems like as old as Hercules graphics.

-A.M.

Did I miss something ?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I still use my old Matrox Millenium I bought in 1995 for $300 (if I remember correctly). Nowadays there are graphics adapters going for $70 that probably have more power and memory than the P200 that houses the Matrox Millenium. Moore's law never ceases to amaze me ...

Not worth the price, unless want/need DX9 features

[rzbx]

Not really worth it. For just a little more you can buy a decent Geforce 4 4200/4400/4600 that runs better than this card. It only seems worth it if you want or need those DX9 features.
Btw, I am selling my GF 4 4200 card. I am happy with my GF2 MX. I stopped playing games, no really, I did.

Toms Hardware Bribe?

[Michael's a Jerk!]

Tom's recommendation changes frequently, depending on which compant gave gim the last shiney toy. Read THG for the articles, but don't take his Advice

Bottom line question...

[ElGuapoGolf]

Here's the deal. It's cheap. But will it play Doom III and Half Life 2 acceptably when they're released? If it can, then it's worth buying. If it can't, it's nothing more than a card for the IBMs, Compaqs, Dells, etc. who want to list "Graphics by NVidia" as one of their bulletpoints.

Re:PCI version, woohoo!

[brer_rabbit]

Does the PCI bus even have enough bandwidth for this kind of video card to make a difference, though?

When I upgraded from a GeForce2 MX to a GeForce4 MX I tried to grab some benchmarks:

test geforce2 geforce4
--------
xengine 237-238 rpm 60xxxx rpm
gears -fps 39-45 fps 45 solid
gears -fps -delay 1 83 fps 90 solid
gears -fps -delay 0 120-160 fps 300-500

so yeah, it makes a difference. Return to Castle Wolfenstein seemed a bit snappier with the GeForce4 than the 2, but I didn't benchmark that.

Nvidia's idiotic naming conventions

[caitsith01]

Is anyone else completely fed up with nvidia's moronic naming conventions?

First we had the original GeForce 1+2 series, and things were good. Then GeForce 3 Ti kicked it up a notch performance wise. Following this the GeForce 4 *Ti* series continued the improvement in performance, but the GeForce 4 *MX* series was also introduced and performed like a piece of overcooked dog-doo. In benchmarking my old GeForce 2 GTS card easily beats a GF2-MX 400 in 3D games and benchmarks.

But nvidia's marketing fools weren't done yet. Not content with ripping off kids who thought they would be getting a cool, up to date graphics card for a bargain price, they then introduced the following naming convention to the GeForce 4 Ti series:

GF4-Ti 4200 - Entry level
GF4-Ti 4400 - Mainstream
GF4-Ti 4600 - High performance
GF4-Ti 4800 - Either a 4200 or 4600 with an 8x AGP bus (read: no performance increase), depending on which version you happen to buy

So, we have a GeForce 2 that kicks the ass of a GeForce 4 in 3D games, and now a GeForce 4 4400 that kicks the ass of some GeForce 4 4800s but will always be slower than a GeForce 4 4600, which in turn will always be at least as fast as a 4800.

With the FX series, who the hell knows? All I know is that there is now absolutely no connection between the family number (Geforce 1,2,3,4,FX) and actual performance, and no connection between the model number (4200, 4400, 4600, 4800) and actual performance. Given that ATI is currently whupping nvidia in performance and output quality it seems to me that the marketing people at nvidia need to think *really* hard about their naming conventions. Amazingly adding a higher number to a piece of crap does not make it a faster piece of crap, although it may wreck your reputation with consumers.

Sounds like...

[MaestroRC]

They were just ansy to talk about their Radeon 9600 again. They start out the article telling about how the 9600 is a much more expensive and more capable card, and that it is not really in the same bracket that the FX5200 is in, yet the entire thing seems to brag about how much better the 9600 is doing. If they wanted to put the 9600 into the review, they should have at least included an NVidia card that was comparable to it, if only to not make NVidia look bad. If a potential buyer were looking over this review, and didn't read the disclaimer at the beginning, he would be very turned off to this card's performance, which really isn't that bad for the price.

Companies REALLY should think about what they are reviewing before they throw something together to review it.
That's my flame for the day.

-3 Offtopic
+1 Insightful