Curse

DamFiNo · Mar 01, 2007, 01:00 AM // 01:00

Just wanted to say thanks to all posters for an excellent thread. Very informative, with no arrogance, elitism, or flaming. Really, really nice

moriz · Mar 01, 2007, 03:05 PM // 15:05

one thing to be aware is, much of the power of the x1300 and 6200 gpus are lost in the PCI interface. yes, they are nice, and yes, they can render the game beautifully, but the PCI slot simply does not allow them to do it at acceptable speeds: the bandwidth is far too small.

you'll get much better performance from the 9250. it won't look as pretty, but it's not gonna slow down to 10 fps in an 8 person instance.

if you're not afraid to fork out a few more dollars, the BGH geforce fx5500 OC 256mb PCI is pretty nice. i can go max resolution with full eyecandy in lion's arch, and it can still render an acceptable 15-20 fps.

llsektorll · Mar 01, 2007, 03:05 PM // 15:05

i've ran guild wars with integrated geforce 2 MX as well as a geforce 1 card from the year 2000 with around 10 FPS in towns and 17FPS with no one with 512mb ram... at everything on low.

Dex · Mar 01, 2007, 04:43 PM // 16:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

one thing to be aware is, much of the power of the x1300 and 6200 gpus are lost in the PCI interface. yes, they are nice, and yes, they can render the game beautifully, but the PCI slot simply does not allow them to do it at acceptable speeds: the bandwidth is far too small.

you'll get much better performance from the 9250. it won't look as pretty, but it's not gonna slow down to 10 fps in an 8 person instance.

if you're not afraid to fork out a few more dollars, the BGH geforce fx5500 OC 256mb PCI is pretty nice. i can go max resolution with full eyecandy in lion's arch, and it can still render an acceptable 15-20 fps.

I'm not sure why you think the PCI slot is going to make the 6200 slower than the 9250. They're both using the same PCI slot and the 6200 is a faster GPU. The amount of onboard memory isn't going to make that much of a difference unless you crank up the textures, which you shouldn't do with any PCI card. The same is true for the bus bandwidth...just don't crank up the settings. By your logic the fx5500 shouldn't be any faster either because it's also using the PCI slot. I mean, people are running Oblivion at playable framerates on a PCI 6200, which is something the fx5500 cannot do (yes, I know that the fx5500 is a higher fill-rate card, which will make it faster in non-shader-heavy games, but it has lousy pixel shaders). Can you back this up with numbers? If so, then I'll shut up.

moriz · Mar 01, 2007, 07:05 PM // 19:05

the 6200 and x1300 will send MORE data through the same bandwidth to achieve the better rendering. even if you turn graphic quality to the same level, those two cards will still send more data through the same bandwidth simply because they are designed to do so. even if they do perform at the same level as the 9250 at low graphic settings, you've essentially wasted your $$$ for additional eyecandy you will never use.

with that said, i replaced the BGH card with a crappier card of the same model number. this new card, despite being only 25 mhz slower on the GPU, can no longer acceptably render at the same pace as the BGH. go figure.

Dex · Mar 01, 2007, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

the 6200 and x1300 will send MORE data through the same bandwidth to achieve the better rendering. even if you turn graphic quality to the same level, those two cards will still send more data through the same bandwidth simply because they are designed to do so. even if they do perform at the same level as the 9250 at low graphic settings, you've essentially wasted your $$$ for additional eyecandy you will never use.

with that said, i replaced the BGH card with a crappier card of the same model number. this new card, despite being only 25 mhz slower on the GPU, can no longer acceptably render at the same pace as the BGH. go figure.

Don't want to start an argument with you, but... The 6200 can achieve better texture compresson than the 9250, and the additional scene information is a negligible amount of data compared to the textures. I still don't see why you think the 9250 is going to be able to do more with the same bandwidth.

As far as the price, the 6200 that I linked to is cheaper than the 256MB 9250s. So, at lower settings you're still getting a better value from the 6200.

As far as your last comment, if 25 mhz on the same GPU makes a difference, isn't that supporting my supposition that the faster of the two GPUs (the 6200) is the better choice?

moriz · Mar 01, 2007, 07:26 PM // 19:26

the BGH card was made by.... well, BGH. the second card i got was made by Jupiter Digital. the fact that A: it's a worser manufacturer and B: probably have some wierd driver compatibility issues, probably constitutes the performance difference.

and lastly, the 6200 is probably not better than the 5500 performance wise. similar to how the 7300 is worse than the 6600. the first number for nvidia cards do not matter too much if it's 5 or above. it's the second number that really counts.

Dex · Mar 01, 2007, 07:40 PM // 19:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

and lastly, the 6200 is probably not better than the 5500 performance wise. similar to how the 7300 is worse than the 6600. the first number for nvidia cards do not matter too much if it's 5 or above. it's the second number that really counts.

I think that's an "apples n' oranges" situation. That statement is usually true, but not in this case or in the case of the 5-series vs the 6-series. The 6600 is leaps and bounds better than the FX5900. The reason is that while the FX5500 has a high fill-rate, the FX series of GPUs have notoriously non-existent pixel shaders. That's why you need at least a FX5700 to even think about running newer games like Oblivion and BF2 and the 6200 can actually run them reasonably well at lower settings. That's pretty impressive for a PCI card. Cards like the Radeon 9250 can't run most newer games at all because they don't comply with the graphics standards.

Now, granted, these benches are for AGP versions of the cards, but it's the only set of benches I could find:

http://www.digital-daily.com/video/n...up/index02.htm

It would seem that the 6200 is more powerful than the FX5500 for the most part in newer games. How the PCI bus affects this remains to be seen, but again, given that the way textures are transferred over the bus is significantly more efficient on the 6200 I would still favor the 6200. At any rate, that 6200 at Newegg is quite a good deal and should run GW just about as well (or better) as any other PCI video card.