Need help picking a good graphics card!! 1

[purevanilla88]

Hey guys,

I have a little dilema here...
I have the choice between a Chaintech GeForce FX 5200 and an XFX GeForce FX 5500...

Both have 256 MB DDR, but the "RAMDAC" for the 5200 is 400 MHz while the 5500 only has 350 MHz...

The "Fill Rate Per Second" for the 5200 is 1.0 Billion texels, while the 5500 has 1.1 Billion texels...

The 5200 can do 63 Million "vertices per second" and the 5500 can do 68 Million...

Finally, the core clock for the 5200 is 250 MHz, while the 5500 is 270 MHz...

The two cards seem to have everything else in common...

Everything I listed seems to be faster in the 5500 except for the "RAMDAC..."

What do you guys think? Is the "RAMDAC" so important that I should choose the 5200 over the 5500, or do all of the other better features make the 5500 a better buy??

thanks a lot!!

-Chris

P.S: What kind of power supply should I have to support these cards?? I have two hard drives and two CD/DVD drives and an AMD Athlon 3000 processor...

 

[cdogg]

Think of it this way. Imagine that you had an Athlon CPU that ran at 1.8GHz with a 400MHz FSB. You decide to benchmark it against a 2GHz Athlon that only had a 333MHz FSB. In most cases, the sheer horsepower of the 2GHz would win out.

It's exactly the same here. One card (the older 5500) has slower RAM. But all the specs show the 5500 in the lead because the two are pretty similar in design, and the 5500 has the higher GPU clock speed.

It's not much of a difference though in real-life performance. I wouldn't spend any extra $$ just to get the 5500 over the 5200...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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[pmonett]

If you're looking in that range of cards, I would suggest a Radeon 9800. Nvidia's FX series was a great disappointment. The R9800 beats it all the time, and is a great performer for its price.

Pascal.

 

[garebo]

I dont know a lot about vid cards but i can support what pmonett said, have heard that a few times, that nvidia's FX series is not that great. So you might want to consider the radeon 9800 as suggested.

Now the power supply. These days you have to make sure the power supply you get has the connections you need. For instance, some motherboards are now using the 24 pin connector instead of the 20 pin connector. And you may want to make sure the new power supply has a sata connector as well, for use now or in the future. They pretty well all have the P4 12 volt connector now but you want to make sure.
A decent power supply will start at around $40 or so and on up. Newegg.com would be one good place to go for that, not pushing them though. However, a week or so ago, Directron.com had some pretty decent one on sale for $20, dont know if they still do. But unless its on sale you can expect to pay $40 on up. And its not worth it to go cheap on the power supply, take my advice on that.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[paparazi]

purevanilla88

Don't get too hung up on the amount of onboard ram these cards have.
256mb is generally waisted on entry level graphics cards like the 5200/5500, they are simply not powerful enough to use this much cache memory, 128mb is plenty for this type of card.
I have no idea of the price bracket we are talking about here, I know it's fairly low in graphics card terms.
What I do suspect however is that there are better cards available at this price point.
Use this guide to evaluate performance against price (notice the 5200 is right at the bottom and although the 5500 is too new to appear on this list i believe it falls just a couple of places higher, 3rd or fourth from the bottom)

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-04.html#3dmark_2003

Seriously look at the aging but very powerful Radeon 9700Pro the 9500pro if you see one, the very competant 9600Pro a plain 9800

Lots of slightly older cards that are two or three times more powerful than the ones you sellected and may well be only a few 4's more.
Martin



We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[garebo]

I sure wish they had an "edit" feature.
On my suggestions regarding the power supply above, i forgot to mention wattage. Well, wattage isnt the most important feature. I mentioned some above and should have added this:
Cheap, junk power supplies advertise false claims of 500, 600 watts that are simply lies. A good power supply, as i said, will cost $40 or more, and the wattage will be from 300 to, say, 450, and 350 should do for the average system, if you get a decent power supply. Whats important is the amperage of the rails (varying voltage lines) To get info on that go to places like AMD (cpu people), tomshardware, places like that have charts showing what amps you need. They also show different makes that are good as well.

If you dont want to mess around checking things out then you could just go overboard and spend $80 and you would be bound to get a real good unit. Im not suggesting that, though. With a bit of effort you can find a decent one at the price stated.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[cdogg]

Well actually, those power ratings might be true to some extent in the cheap power supplies, but they are not "quality" watts. A decent power supply will be able to sustain high wattage while under a constant heavy load. The cheap ones can only do so for short bursts or periods of time, or may even die trying.

The same thing is true for car amplifiers, where you can't just buy based on the wattage spec. I remember a set of 12's I connected to a 500W amp made by Prestige back when I was new to car stereo. Later, I upgraded (that's right upgraded) to a 200W Soundstream amp that powered the speakers like you wouldn't believe. It blew the 500W amp out of the water...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[garebo]

Good example!
I read an article, wish i could remember where, but it was on a respectable site. Anyway, turns out the person was an eletrician or electronics expert of some sort. What he said was something like this: " The standards required for a power supply for a pc are pitiful, far below standards in other areas ( I cant remember what areas he talked about)". He said the standards are simply pathetic and need to be changed drastically.

Well, that falls in place with info i have read at different respectable places, and its certainly what i believe. A $10 or $20 super 500 watt power supply is actually a piece of junk, and possibly even a dangerous piece of junk. On the other hand, one can sometimes find a good power supply for around $20 to $30 if its on sale, $40 or more if not. I saw a good power supply recently at Directron on sale for $20 but im sure the sale is over now.




Good advice + great people = tek-tips