supersunbird
Honorary Master
5200 vs 5900xt vs 6600 vs 6800le vs 9250- a review
Hi, here is my review of some graphics cards I had around here today.
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The first card tested was the venerable (and as you will see, slow) 5200 chipset card from AOpen. The card has an attractive black PCB and is passively cooled by a bigish black heatsink without a fan, which means it doesn't produce any noise. Unfortunately this part has a 64bit memory bus and that cripples it even more than a regular card with a 128bit memory bus.
This card is quite capable of playing older games like IGI and Serious Sam, but suffers greatly in modern games that use DirectX 9.
AOpen nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB 64bit (Core: 250 Memory: 320)
3DMark2001SE: 3984
3DMark2003: 905
3DMark2005: 231
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 32.69fps average
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Next up is the Gigabyte 5900XT offering. It was at the bottom rung of the-top-of-the-range cards of the FX series, but quite a step up from the 5700 series. It comes with a blue PCB just like all Gigabyte motherboards. The ones tested here is already a bit old and thus the fan can be quite noisy when the PC is first switched on. Its also a quite heavy card, due to the big heatsink.
The 256bit bus provides it with quite a push but due to nVidias poor implementation of DirectX 9 it suffers alot in new shader intensive titles, only just being able to compete against the 6600 series, but falling behind a lot in the newest of games.
Gigabyte nVidia GeForce FX 5900XT 128MB 256bit (Core: 300 Memory: 700)
3DMark2001SE: 15011
3DMark2003: 5316
3DMark2005: 987
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 92.79fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
The next card was the previous generations mid range card and is now moving into the value price range. Its comes with a blue PCB, and a smallish silver heatsink that features a small (but pretty quiet) fan. I am pretty sure this card could have been passively cooled with a bigger heatsink, since the temperatures were quite low, this would prevent the change of the small fan becoming noisy over time.
Performance wise is has the same performance as the 5900XT in older games, but even with the same core clock and a slower memory clock it will beat the 5900XT in newer titles. This card wont let you run the newest games in all their glory, but you should get reasonable framerates with everything on medium.
Asus nVidia GeForce 6600 128MB 128bit (Core: 300 Memory: 500)
3DMark2001SE: 13384
3DMark2003: 5075
3DMark2005: 2033
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 80.12fps average
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The Leadtek 6800le fills the same slot as the 5900XT previously filled, in being the cheapest and most crippled card from the 6800 series.
It comes with a standard green PCB and has a big heatsink, with a big heatsink on the back too, for the memory modules located there. This results in a very heavy card. After 5 motnhs age the fan is already very noisy on start up and while not too noisy while running after a while, its the loudest fan in the system.
Perfomance wise, this card competes with the 6600GT class of cards, normally just below them in benchmarks because the 256bit bus and DDR (at 700MHz) memory cant make up for the clock advantage of the 6600GT's 128bit bus with GDDR3 (at 1000MHz) memory. One good thing about these cards though is that they can be found for less R's than 6600GT's and have the possibility of being unlocked a bit.
Leadtek nVidia GeForce 6800LE 128MB 256bit (Stock, no unlocked pipes) (Core: 300 Memory: 700)
3DMark2001SE: 17552
3DMark2003: 7107
3DMark2005: 2644
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 92.21fps average
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This is the same card as above, but with some manufacturer disabled pixel unit (1 of 2) and vertex (2 of 2) pipes I unlocked with the RivaTuner application. The one pixel pipe causes benchmark and games graphics to be corrupt and you can basically not see what is going on so it was disabled again.
As you can see, the unlocking of these pipes greatly increases performance on all levels. The same model card from the same manufacturer could give different results with unlocking pipes, and thus results arent gaurenteed.
Leadtek nVidia GeForce 6800LE 128MB 256bit (unlocked pipes) (Core: 300 Memory: 700)
3DMark2001SE: 19052
3DMark2003: 8858
3DMark2005: 3456
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 115.39fps average
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The only Radeon card tested is the entry level 9250. The card has the usual blue Gigabyte PCB and is actively cooled by a small silver heatsink with a noise fan. This card features a 128bit memory bus and it greatly helps its performance at speeds similar to the 5200. This card also features ViVo (Video in, Video out) and if you can get it is the cheapest ViVo card on the market.
This card is quite capable of playing older games like IGI and Serious Sam and beats the 5200 handily as can be seen by the almost double 3DMark2001 score, but suffers when asked to play new DirectX 9 optimised games.. It wouldn't run the Nature (a DirectX 9 test) and Pixel Shader 2.0 tests in 3DMark2003 and wouldn't run 3DMark 2005 at all because the card doesn't support DirectX 9 and is a DirectX 8 based card.
Gigabyte ATI Radeon 128MB 128bit (Core: 240 Memory: 400) with ViVo:
3DMark2001SE: 7051
3DMark2003: 1198
3DMark2005: None
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 35.36fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
I hope you enjoyed my review and found some usefull information.
*Testbed PC:
AMD socket 754 Athlon 3400+ @ 2.4GHz
Abit NF8 Motherboard
1,5GB DDR 400 Memory
200GB Seagate PATA hard drive
.
Hi, here is my review of some graphics cards I had around here today.
---------------------------------------------------------
The first card tested was the venerable (and as you will see, slow) 5200 chipset card from AOpen. The card has an attractive black PCB and is passively cooled by a bigish black heatsink without a fan, which means it doesn't produce any noise. Unfortunately this part has a 64bit memory bus and that cripples it even more than a regular card with a 128bit memory bus.
This card is quite capable of playing older games like IGI and Serious Sam, but suffers greatly in modern games that use DirectX 9.
AOpen nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MB 64bit (Core: 250 Memory: 320)
3DMark2001SE: 3984
3DMark2003: 905
3DMark2005: 231
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 32.69fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
Next up is the Gigabyte 5900XT offering. It was at the bottom rung of the-top-of-the-range cards of the FX series, but quite a step up from the 5700 series. It comes with a blue PCB just like all Gigabyte motherboards. The ones tested here is already a bit old and thus the fan can be quite noisy when the PC is first switched on. Its also a quite heavy card, due to the big heatsink.
The 256bit bus provides it with quite a push but due to nVidias poor implementation of DirectX 9 it suffers alot in new shader intensive titles, only just being able to compete against the 6600 series, but falling behind a lot in the newest of games.
Gigabyte nVidia GeForce FX 5900XT 128MB 256bit (Core: 300 Memory: 700)
3DMark2001SE: 15011
3DMark2003: 5316
3DMark2005: 987
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 92.79fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
The next card was the previous generations mid range card and is now moving into the value price range. Its comes with a blue PCB, and a smallish silver heatsink that features a small (but pretty quiet) fan. I am pretty sure this card could have been passively cooled with a bigger heatsink, since the temperatures were quite low, this would prevent the change of the small fan becoming noisy over time.
Performance wise is has the same performance as the 5900XT in older games, but even with the same core clock and a slower memory clock it will beat the 5900XT in newer titles. This card wont let you run the newest games in all their glory, but you should get reasonable framerates with everything on medium.
Asus nVidia GeForce 6600 128MB 128bit (Core: 300 Memory: 500)
3DMark2001SE: 13384
3DMark2003: 5075
3DMark2005: 2033
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 80.12fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
The Leadtek 6800le fills the same slot as the 5900XT previously filled, in being the cheapest and most crippled card from the 6800 series.
It comes with a standard green PCB and has a big heatsink, with a big heatsink on the back too, for the memory modules located there. This results in a very heavy card. After 5 motnhs age the fan is already very noisy on start up and while not too noisy while running after a while, its the loudest fan in the system.
Perfomance wise, this card competes with the 6600GT class of cards, normally just below them in benchmarks because the 256bit bus and DDR (at 700MHz) memory cant make up for the clock advantage of the 6600GT's 128bit bus with GDDR3 (at 1000MHz) memory. One good thing about these cards though is that they can be found for less R's than 6600GT's and have the possibility of being unlocked a bit.
Leadtek nVidia GeForce 6800LE 128MB 256bit (Stock, no unlocked pipes) (Core: 300 Memory: 700)
3DMark2001SE: 17552
3DMark2003: 7107
3DMark2005: 2644
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 92.21fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
This is the same card as above, but with some manufacturer disabled pixel unit (1 of 2) and vertex (2 of 2) pipes I unlocked with the RivaTuner application. The one pixel pipe causes benchmark and games graphics to be corrupt and you can basically not see what is going on so it was disabled again.
As you can see, the unlocking of these pipes greatly increases performance on all levels. The same model card from the same manufacturer could give different results with unlocking pipes, and thus results arent gaurenteed.
Leadtek nVidia GeForce 6800LE 128MB 256bit (unlocked pipes) (Core: 300 Memory: 700)
3DMark2001SE: 19052
3DMark2003: 8858
3DMark2005: 3456
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 115.39fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
The only Radeon card tested is the entry level 9250. The card has the usual blue Gigabyte PCB and is actively cooled by a small silver heatsink with a noise fan. This card features a 128bit memory bus and it greatly helps its performance at speeds similar to the 5200. This card also features ViVo (Video in, Video out) and if you can get it is the cheapest ViVo card on the market.
This card is quite capable of playing older games like IGI and Serious Sam and beats the 5200 handily as can be seen by the almost double 3DMark2001 score, but suffers when asked to play new DirectX 9 optimised games.. It wouldn't run the Nature (a DirectX 9 test) and Pixel Shader 2.0 tests in 3DMark2003 and wouldn't run 3DMark 2005 at all because the card doesn't support DirectX 9 and is a DirectX 8 based card.
Gigabyte ATI Radeon 128MB 128bit (Core: 240 Memory: 400) with ViVo:
3DMark2001SE: 7051
3DMark2003: 1198
3DMark2005: None
Counter Strike Source Video Stress Test: 35.36fps average
---------------------------------------------------------
I hope you enjoyed my review and found some usefull information.
*Testbed PC:
AMD socket 754 Athlon 3400+ @ 2.4GHz
Abit NF8 Motherboard
1,5GB DDR 400 Memory
200GB Seagate PATA hard drive
.
Last edited:
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!) he changed the name on the Word 2000 startup splashscreen to someone elses name and wants it changed back too his name, I told him I cant, he doesn't know how he did it. He's 75 or something. Sigh!
, maybe it was to tell people to pay for illegal software is stupid and that they should rather get it free somewhere, or just pay for the real thing, commercial piracy is wrong), and a two part thing explainging in laymans terms how PC's work and whats important. This was around April to July 2002. The paper only lasted about 7 months because the owner/editor got a job somewhere...