i am wondering something...
i see several sites showing graphics cards for sale from the meagre 32Mb right up to the powerful 256 or more Mb...and in varying models.
now I noticed a radeon 9200 256Mb for around £80 (tv out and dual monitor) where as a 9800 of 256 is several times more expensive.
in what way is the 9200 256 different to the 9800? assuming i know very little about how things work - what is there to stop a mod on an £80 card to give it an expensive feel.
just hope some one can clarify that, cheers![]()


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As pretty much covered the newer series of cards (eg 9200 vs 9800) offer faster speeds, more features and are more efficient.
Regarding the 4200 cards (well any cards really) completely disregard the 'Turbo', 'Enhanced' type stuff as most of the time it's just meaningless garble, Gainward are the worst for this. The only things to really note are the official family designations such as MX (slow), SE (slow), TI, ULTRA and PRO. You can't even take the official model name as 100% gospel as 4600 is faster than the 4800SE, just as the Rad9000-9200 are slower than the Rad8500. Also note the bottom end of the next generation are often slower than the high end (or even mid-range) of the previous generation. For example the GF3TI200 is faster and superior in 3D compared to the whole GF4MX line, also the GF4TI4200 is faster than the GF-FX5200-5600. I've already covered the 9000-9200 vs 8500 scene but another ATI example is the Rad9600PRO vs Rad9500PRO and Rad9700 (even nonPRO) vs Rad9800SE.
Do consider the extra price these cards demand, if they are similarly priced to a Rad9600PRO (£130ish) then the Rad is easily better in all categories. A std 4200 is still a very good card and tend to o/c to 4400/4800SE speeds at least.
The GF-FX5200 is better than GF4MX, Rad9000-9200 and GF3TI200 but is way inferior to the GF4TI4200. The FX5200ultra is quite a lot better and just behind the FX5600 ... but even the FX5600ultra (£150ish) can struggle to keep up with GF4TI4200. The only FX it's worth going for is the FX5200 when on a very tight budget as it beats the competing Rad9000-9200, otherwise the GF4TI or Rad9600PRO+ are easily better solutions than the rest of the FX range.
