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Old July 11th 03, 02:22 PM
Stephen Smith
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"Bratboy" wrote in message ...

Buyer beware, apparently the only fx5200 by gainward that uses the 128 bit
mem path is the Golden Sample versions all others in the 5200's are using
a crappy 64 bit pathway which absolutly kills the card as far as ANY
performance at all. A company sent me a Gainward fx5200 (lite version) to
replace a failing gf3 and it royally sux. Apparently Lite means lite on
performance. No where on the box do they even dare mention that it only
uses a 64 bit bus. You have to go look at their site to learn that. Anyway
and some tests using both cards:

3DMark01 SE
1280x1024, 32 bit, 2xAA and 2xAF

Old GF3 - 2698, 2695, 2699
FX5200 - 1058, 1050, 1055

All in all so **** poor a performer I wouldnt even wish it on my worst
enemy. Really glad the company sent it to me free as if I'd paid even $50
for it I'd be way more ****ed. As is I wrote to Gainward and am hopeing
they have some sort of step up p[rogram to deal with this but know better
than to hold my breath that they will do anything.

Just Jess


Similar situation here. The other day I built up a system for a friend, some
of the bits and pieces he'd bought himself, while the other parts were
donated from his brother-in-law.

One item, an MSI GeForce 5200 FX, caught my eye.

"Ooh an FX, how cool, wonder how they perform compared to my 'slow' GeForce
3?" I thought to myself.

Now, I haven't particularly researched the FX cards but I imagined that the
5200 - being the budget model - would probably perform as well as a
mid-range GeForce 4, so I was looking forward to checking it out.

How wrong I was.....

The game at hand was "Max Payne", and my word, was it a "payne" ;-) to play!
Even in 640x480 with a combination of low and medium settings, it felt
_very_ sluggish and generally not a nice experience. A darn-fine game ruined
by the card.

On the other hand, my GeForce 3 handles it beautifully. 1024x768,
medium-high settings (predominantly high) is very responsive and a joy to
play.

The next game I tried (BloodRayne) played slightly better than Max Payne,
although occasionally I could feel it not being too responsive and the
overall animation didn't appear as visually smooth.

So now I know to avoid the 5200 like the plague!

Stephen, who'll stick with his trusty GF3, thank-you-very-much.