Radeon 8500 or Nvidia FX5200

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg
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Greg

The Radeon has 64 meg and the Nvidia has 128. But the Ramdac is the same.
This is for a desktop. Some 3D game playing. Otherwise desktop publishing
and photo editing.

Thanks,
Greg
 
From what i remember the 8500 was a great card (i owned a vivo) ive used a
pc with 5200 and it was pretty poor but it was a while ago, saying that how
much is your budget and what kind of games do u want to play.?

doughnut
 
There is no budget. I don't want to invest in a new card. I will either use
the one I have now (ati) or I can swap it out for the Nvidia. This is in a
dell 4300 1.6ghz p4. So the video games aren't too graphic intense.
 
Greg said:
The Radeon has 64 meg and the Nvidia has 128. But the Ramdac is the same.
This is for a desktop. Some 3D game playing. Otherwise desktop publishing
and photo editing.

Thanks,
Greg
Click to expand...

The 5200 is a significant downgrade in speed and quality. Even if it's a
128it version, which many of them aren't.
 
The 8500 GPU supports Direct X 8.1 the 5200 Direct X 9.0.
If you get the 5200, make sure it is the faster "Ultra" model.
I was able to get a used ATI 9600 off eBay for $41.
 
Greg said:
The Radeon has 64 meg and the Nvidia has 128. But the Ramdac is the same.
This is for a desktop. Some 3D game playing. Otherwise desktop publishing
and photo editing.

Thanks,
Greg
Click to expand...
I have owned both, the 8500 was genuine ATI, it ran good, but I
have to say the 5200 ran better. Now this is a PNY 128 MB card, and I
did OC it to 300 or so for the gpu. I am usually a fan of ATI, have
owned many many ATI cards, but I have to honestly say the 5200 ran
better and some games looked and played better. Most would disagree but
I seriously doubt the 8500 could run Farcry, and the 5200 ran it at
medium settings 1024 x 768 with decent framerates. I have since bought a
6800 and like that a lot, but the 5200 is far better than the way people
make it out to be. Sorry, but I am just telling it like it is.
 
Greg said:
snip
Click to expand...

I have an 8500Pro and it works fine. Rest of system is a 2600XP, 512Mb
DDR400 Ram, MSI mobo.

Runs Far Cry well enough on low setting but is a but jumpy on medium and
won't do high.
Medal of Honor and Call of Duty run well enough both singleplayer and online
and these are the only games I play at the moment.

I am currently looking at an upgrade though - maybe a 9600XT or a 9700Pro.
 
At that time I'm sure it was true, but that test is over 18 months old,
NVIDIA has had lots of time to improve the drivers for the 5200.
 
tod said:
At that time I'm sure it was true, but that test is over 18 months old,
NVIDIA has had lots of time to improve the drivers for the 5200.
Click to expand...

Yes, and ATI's has had time for drivers to have improved too. A 128bit 5200
is not as fast as an 8500 card in any way shape or form. It may have DX9 but
on a card that slow it's immaterial. There are no 5200 Ultras for sale
anymore, and even the Ultra would get a 3DMark03 of 10,400 and the
non-Ultra 128bit would get 8150on a P4 2.8. A Radeon 8500 does about 11,000
on an equivalent system.
 
Augustus said:
anymore, and even the Ultra would get a 3DMark03 of 10,400 and the
non-Ultra 128bit would get 8150on a P4 2.8. A Radeon 8500 does about 11,000
on an equivalent system.
Click to expand...

Don't you mean 3DMark2001.
 
I have had both cards at the same time in identical systems.
amd1800+, 512 ram, soyo dragon plus boards

I played with them both for months and I can tell you each has its use. but
to pick one or the other I could not do. the ati is faster but the nvidi has
more ram.
in games I ended up using the ati 8500 sys more but in every day work I
fired up the fx 5200 sys.
you say your gona do desktop publishing and photo editing.
so I say go with the fx5200 the extra ram will help and the slightly slower
speed will not effect you at all.
 
Desktop publishing at 2048x1536, 32-bit color requires only 8 MB of video
memory. The RAMDAC doesn't get used if you drive an LCD through a DVI
digital connection. Either card is overkill for your professional usage.

I say get a nVidia Geforce4 Ti4200 (or Ti4600 if you find it for cheap).
It's faster than both, and has better-quality FSAA than the 8500.
 
Augustus said:
You're right.
Click to expand...
doesn't matter to me, but there is no friggin way a 8500 would run
FarCry well, it was a 64 MB card and even BF 1942 didn't run real well
on it. I really could not care less what Tom says. This is a good 5200,
trust me. Also consider it was slightly overclocked.
 
FWIW - I own a couple of nVidia's and a couple of ATI's in various pc's.
After couple years now I can honestly say I've had a lot less problems with
nVidia's drivers etc. than ATI's. The ATI cards seem a lot more prone to
"wonder what got installed that changed ??? so it no longer works as it did"

As far as "compatibility" goes, I've never been able to get Final Fantasy
VII to run on any of the ATI cards, conversely I've never been able to get
VRally III to run on any of the nVidia cards. That's across multiple OS's.
 
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