Review of Radeon 9550

[ragolis]

What do you guys think about the radeon 9550 any bad experianeces

[maverick77_uk]

Hi there,

Been using one for the past year and a half - very good little card. However, these days it kinda depends on what you want to use it for and the rest of your PC - coz its not that fast and if you're not careful it would bottleneck you.

I use one in a media "entertainment" PC. We don't have a telly, so it sits in the lounge, and we use the computer for watching DVDs, playing MP3's, and playing games.

The PC is Windows XP, witha SocA Sempron 2500 and 512MB RAM. We have a 17" monitor, and on 1024 by 768 resolution, the 9550 plays Doom 3 and F.E.A.R. after fiddling with options a bit.

However, for the price I have a suspicion there are better options nowadays - the 9550 is dx9 part, but the SM 2.

For about a tenner more, you could get the 9600XT, thats got twice the processing power
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=93610

or a Geforce 5200 could be got for £15-£20 quid now that is very similar (kicks out a bit more heat and takes a few more Watts powere though), or for the same price a Geforce 6200, that has a bit more umph and SM 3.

[ragolis]

Would it work on a 250 watt power supply will the 9600 work on a 250 watt power supply or
have I got to buy a new one and If i have to get a new power supply is Jeantech an alright name

[maverick77_uk]

Hi,

It would depend on what other components you're using on your system. As long as you're below a 2.5GHz, have one hard drive and one optical drive only, with no other added bits, they *should* work of a 250W PSU, but would prefer a 300 or 350 Watt to be safer - especially if its a cheap PSU as they don't always give their full rating.

Not heard of Jeantech myself - check out online reviews.

Cheers!