No announcement yet.

Poor performance with XFX FX 5200 - help?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Poor performance with XFX FX 5200 - help?

    Asus A7V8X-X
    Athlon XP 1700+
    512 MB DDR PC3200
    XFX GeForce FX 5200 128 MB DDR

    I'm getting extremely poor performance out of this card - yes, I know the stock 5200s are crap, but this one seems to be even more crap than average. According to FutureMark, people with similar backplane specs are getting 3DMark2001 scores of 7000-8000 - I can't even break 5000 with this rig. The highest I can overclock the card before 3DMark2K1 starts locking up is 267 core, 423 memory. And the odd thing is that the default frequency on the memory, according to both the 71.89 drivers and RivaTuner, is 332 MHz. So XFX seems to have cheaped out on the memory. Even so, Bjorn3D got 7000+ 3DMarks when he reviewed this same card. http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=279

    WTF am I doing wrong?

    -cpdohert

  • #2
    Re: Poor performance with XFX FX 5200 - help?

    There are a lot of factors that you may or may not have taken into concideration... When people do reviews it is often done on a new install of windows and with minimal services/programs running, you should disable all services that you do not need before running any benchmarking program.

    The memory frequency is correct fow that card, you are right, XFX made theirs 333MHz compaired to 400MHz of makes. So that would probably be your problem. But try the above if you havent already.

    I take it yours is the AGP version?

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Poor performance with XFX FX 5200 - help?

      I did a clean boot of Windows XP following the instructions here:
      http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;331796
      to remove anything like antivirus software running. I don't use Windows XP's firewall, I have a router for that. I've run 3DMark under a normal boot as well and I get scores that are indistinguishable from the clean boot.

      It is the AGP version, yes. And I have the memory overclocked to 423 MHz, which should at least get it in the range of the 200 (x2 = 400) for the stock FX5200.

      I had similar performance problems when this card was in a Dell OptiPlex GX150 PIII-967 MHz with 512 MB SDRAM, but I figured it was just getting system bound. I'm very disappointed that under the new system I've only gained ~500 3DMarks. (4500 -> 5000)

      Is this particular make of FX 5200 just garbage? I'm trying to get my hands on a used 8X Ti 4200 to replace it - it may not be DX9, but at least it won't be _slow_.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Poor performance with XFX FX 5200 - help?

        /me swears loudly after reading some more reviews

        I got this thing from TigerDirect.ca and it turns out that this particular iteration of the card is using cheapass 64 bit memory. Others have reported that they're getting similar 3DMark scores as a result of the crippled memory bus. I guess this lying little hussy is getting sold as soon as I can replace it.

        Thanks for the help, AMDLover. Much obliged.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Poor performance with XFX FX 5200 - help?

          i don't buy anything from tigerdirect anymore after i learned how they can sell stuff cheap. what they do is basically sell stuff that manufactures are getting rid of cause of warehouse space or stuff that has been refurbished or in getting dropped from the manufactures customer support so they can get it cheap and sell it cheap. which is why i go to www.pricewatch.com however when and if you buy something from that website make sure that you are buying a somewhat name brand part cause ive seen some insanley low prices for things that i know can't be anything close to what they should be runnin.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Poor performance with XFX FX 5200 - help?

            I think nVidia really dropped the ball on the FX5xxx series. The price-performance factors were not there, and it's why I kept my aging Triplex Ti4200 card going. It was only recently retired because the cooling fan stopped working. The card was handling Doom3 at 800x600 comfortably. FarCry worked fine at 1024x768, and other games were no problem at all. UT2003 & 2004 were playable, but starting to struggle at times. In Tom's Hardware's VGA card tests, the Ti4200 often beat nearly all of the FX series cards. The Ti4200 card was replaced by a 6600GT, and what a card that is. Curious to note the 5900XT cards are selling for the same price as the 6600GT cards despite the big performance difference.

            When running 3Dmark tests, shutdown or disable every unnecessary program and service. It can make quite an improvement to the score.

            Ti4200 VS FX5200? No contest. The older card is much better in real-world use.

            Comment

            Working...
            X