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XFX GEFORCE FX 5200 REVIEW

"XFX GeForce FX 5200 review testing the new XFX GeForce FX 5200 against the Gainward GeForce4 MX440. Software used for testing was:- 3dmark 2001 SE, 3dmark 2003, Quake 3 Arena, Serious Sam SE and Unreal Tournament 2003."
XFX GEFORCE FX 5200

THE XFX GEFORCE FX 5200 INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING FEATURES:-

CineFX Engine - Powers cinematic effects beyond imagination. With advanced vertex and pixel shader capabilities, stunning and complex special effects are possible. In addition, increased horsepower delivers faster and smoother gameplay.

High-Precision Graphics - By combining the incredible dynamic range of today's state-of-the-art 3D motion pictures with 128-bit studio-precision colour, the GeForce FX GPUs bring you the industry’s best image quality for the most demanding applications.

AGP 8X - Provides double the bandwidth of AGP 4X—2.1GB/sec. vs. 1.1BG/sec. AGP 8X enables more complex models and detailed textures, creating richer and more lifelike environments. Uninterrupted data flow allows for smoother video streaming and faster, more seamless gameplay.

nView Multi-display Technology - The nView hardware and software technology combination delivers maximum flexibility for multi-display options, and provides unprecedented end-user control of the desktop experience.

Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) - Allows the user to adjust colour controls digitally to compensate for the lighting conditions of their workspace, in order to achieve accurate, bright colours in all conditions. Currently this feature is not available on Mac systems.

Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Optimizations and Support - Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all DirectX 9 applications.

OpenGL® 1.4 Optimizations and Support - Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all OpenGL applications.

Integrated TV Encoder - Provides best-of-class TV-out functionality for resolutions up to 1024x768.

Integrated Full Hardware MPEG-2 Decoder - Delivers full-frame, full-screen MPEG-2 video on your desktop.

New 64-phase Video Scaler - Highest quality for scaling DVD and other video to full-screen HDTV resolutions.

DVI Support - Able to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays with up to 1600x1200 resolution.

350MHz RAMDACs - Supports QXGA displays with ergonomic refresh rates.

Architected for Cg - Ensures that the newest, cutting-edge special effects in applications will run flawlessly. Speeds up content creation so game developers can get their new games out to PC users faster than ever before.

Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) - Guarantees forward and backward compatibility with software drivers. Simplifies upgrading to a new NVIDIA product because all NVIDIA products work with the same driver software.

Copyright XFX Technologies Inc. 2001. All rights reserved!


NAME

CHIPSET

GPU SPEED

MEMORY

UK PRICE

US PRICE

XFX GEFORCE FX 5200 Nv34 250mhz 128Mb 400mhz DDR £77 $74
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440 Nv17 270mhz 64Mb 400mhz DDR £43 $58

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR AMD ATHLON XP 2000
VIDEO CARD XFX GEFORCE FX 5200
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440
NVIDIA DRIVER DETONATOR v43.45
MOTHERBOARD ASUS A7S333
MEMORY 512MB SAMSUNG PC2100 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 1
DIRECTX VERSION v9.0a

QUAKE III ARENA

XFX GEFORCE FX 5200

800x600184
1024x768158
1280x1024137

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440

800x600175
1024x768140
1280x1024119

800x600 1024x768 1280x1024

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT - "The XFX GeForce FX 5200 wins this test by between 9 and 18fps ahead of the Gainward GeForce4 MX440. Both video cards performed well and delivered very playable results at all of the resolutions tested."


QUAKE III ARENA
2x FSAA

XFX GEFORCE FX 5200

640x480182
800x400160
1024x768116

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440

640x480168
800x400130
1024x76886

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT - "This 2x fsaa test starts to show the real power of the XFX GeForce FX 5200, it manages to stay ahead of the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 by between 14 and 30fps. Once again the high resolution performance of the XFX GeForce FX 5200 is superior to the Gainward GeForce4 MX440."


QUAKE III ARENA
4x FSAA

XFX GEFORCE FX 5200

640x480155
800x600117
1024x76874

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440

640x480104
800x60073
1024x76847

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT - "The XFX GeForce FX 5200 stays ahead of the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 by between 27 and 51fps. The XFX GeForce FX 5200 at 1024x768 performs better than the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 at 800x600 which is impressive."


QUAKE III ARENA
2x ANISOTROPIC 4x FSAA

XFX GEFORCE FX 5200

640x480153
800x600113
1024x76872

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440

640x480100
800x60071
1024x76847

640x480 800x600 1024x768

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT - "We decided to add anisotropic filtering into the mix to see what would happen. Although the XFX GeForce FX 5200 can do 2x, 4x and 8x anisotropic filtering the Gainward GeForce MX440 can only do 2x which is what we have used here. This is pretty much the same result as seen in the 4x fsaa test above, this time each video card takes a slightly larger performance hit due to using anisotropic."


QUAKE III ARENA
ANISOTROPIC FILTERING

XFX GEFORCE FX 5200

2x ANISOTROPIC136
4x  ANISOTROPIC124
8x ANISOTROPIC116

GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440

2x ANISOTROPIC134
N/AN/A
N/AN/A

2x ANISOTROPIC 4x ANISOTROPIC 8x ANISOTROPIC

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT - "I was expecting better anisotropic filtering performance from the XFX GeForce FX 5200, with anisotropic filtering enabled it's performance suffers like previous geforce video cards."

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