Which graphics card is better and why?

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2008-07-05 01:59am

Can someone tell me which card is better overall, and how to tell?

1. NVIDIA GeForce 6200 LE Link

or

2. GeForce FX 5500 Linky

DaveJB · Post by **DaveJB** » 2008-07-05 03:20am

Overall, the 6200 is better, due to the absolutely terrible shader performance of the 5500. I also think the 6200 is meant to have better hardware video acceleration than the 5500, so assuming you can actually plug it into your system and there's enough system memory for the TurboCache thing to work properly, it's a better deal all around.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-07-05 04:21am

Those are both pretty badly out of date, even for the budget market. You can't get something more recent?

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2008-07-05 04:38am

Dude if you're on a budget get an 8800GTS ... pretty cheap and way better than those two dinos.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2008-07-05 05:20am

Almost certainly the 6-series card. I had a 5-series card and it sucked.

Dude if you're on a budget get an 8800GTS ... pretty cheap and way better than those two dinos.

Those are still about $250 in this country despite being obsolete. I'm not sure what the pricing situation in the US is like for obsolete stuff, but I do know that the Radeon 4850 cards are under $200, quite a bit faster and use less power.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2008-07-05 06:48am

Darth Wong wrote:Those are both pretty badly out of date, even for the budget market. You can't get something more recent?

I could if I needed to get one. Right now, I have the 6200 in my pc, but the local Fry's has that 5500 on sale for free (after the rebate). I was wondering if I should switch out mine for that.

DaveJB · Post by **DaveJB** » 2008-07-05 04:05pm

Really, don't do it. The 5500 is just a mildly overclocked version of the GeForce FX 5200, one of the most notriously awful graphics chips ever to exist. It is worse than the 6200 in absolutely every way you could imagine.

If you're limited to an AGP slot, then there's some AGP versions of the Radeon X1950XT still floating around; they're about the fastest AGP cards I know of that were produced in any great quantity.

Darth Nostril · Post by **Darth Nostril** » 2008-07-05 04:21pm

DaveJB wrote:Really, don't do it. The 5500 is just a mildly overclocked version of the GeForce FX 5200, one of the most notriously awful graphics chips ever to exist. It is worse than the 6200 in absolutely every way you could imagine.

Seconded.
Seriously don't touch it with an eighty foot barge pole, the 5200 is a complete dog.
I wish I wasn't speaking from experience but unfortunately I am.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2008-07-05 04:38pm

Shit I got my 6200 for 10$, how little can you afford Supes? Get another 20$ and swing a Geforce 8400 which is light-years beyond the 5500.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2008-07-09 02:01am

Starglider wrote:Those are still about $250 in this country despite being obsolete.

If by "obsolete" you mean there are newer cards out there, then yeah. If you mean that it has been rendered useless, then no wai. In the US it'll set you back about $170 bucks and it'll run anything up to and including AoC just fine.

Davis 51 · Post by **Davis 51** » 2008-07-09 12:31pm

The 4600 is better than the 5500, which is one of the worst graphics cards ever made. Games looked better on cards made a year BEFORE the 5500 came out. Swapping out a 6200 for a 5500 is a downgrade.

But even the 6200 is badly out of date. Get the 8400.

Edit: That'll teach me to read all the posts.